Van Rooyen, whose ministry determines the date, said there were various factors to be considered, including the Constitutional Court ruling last year on the North West’s Tlokwe by-elections debacle.
“We take it seriously that the elections should be free and fair. Work done by the IEC and the Demarcation Board shows a few outstanding issues should be attended to. The Constitutional Court ruling assigned new things to be done before we can say the environment is ready for our people to take part in free and fair elections,” Van Rooyen said at the Independent Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) in Johannesburg.
Last year, the Constitutional Court found that the Tlokwe by-elections had not been free and fair following an appeal lodged by Xolile David Kham and other former ANC councillors.
The group, who were unsuccessful candidates in the wards in which they had stood for election, sought an order setting aside the by-election results in eight wards relying on the irregularities that emerged from the IEC’s own investigation.
The court declared that the by-elections, conducted on September 12, 2013, in ward 18 and on December 10, 2013, in wards 1, 4, 11, 12, 13 and 20, were not free and fair . It then set aside the outcome of the by-elections.
The IEC was ordered to conduct fresh by-elections. The court further instructed the IEC to verify physical addresses of those on the voters’ roll for future elections.
Van Rooyen said cabinet had approved the establishment of a ministerial committee which would work together with the SA Local Government Association (Salga) and the IEC.
“The committee will start work soon to clear any hurdles. Remember that the term for this local government ends on May 17, and the local elections should be held within 90 days after the term ends. We will be ready to make a proclamation at an appropriate time after these outstanding issues are ironed out.”
IEC deputy chairman Terry Tselane said the court ruling had raised the standards for the IEC. The verification of addresses where a voter is registered was the biggest challenge for the organisation, he said.
The organisation already had people working on collecting information on voters’ addresses, and only 37 percent of addresses had been verified so far.
“There are a lot of areas with no addresses in this country. The biggest challenge will be to go into each and every area, identify landmarks and then have our team identify them on the map. After that process, the names would be sent to political parties for them to further verify that information…that is our biggest challenge to date.”
The IEC had never before been obligated to supply political parties with voters’ addresses accompanying the voters’ roll, he said.
“The verification of addresses will help the IEC locate the right voter within a correct voting district… the court has raised the standard for the IEC. It ordered us to do the things we never considered obligatory before.”
However, no voter would be prevented from voting if their address could not be verified, he said.
