State of preparedness for local elections? Clear as mud.

Almost immediately after the 1994 democratic transition came initiatives to ensure all South Africans would have an address. It was part of the drive to redress the apartheid legacy and restore dignity to the majority of South Africans, in a democracy based on human rights such as equality before the law, the right to a name of one’s own and the right to vote. There were many plans, launched repeatedly. And then it all fizzled out.

Now it’s all coming back to haunt the 2016 local government elections – and at the heart of it are the factional ANC politics in Tlokwe, North West. The 2013 Tlokwe by-election, finally held in December that year after at least two postponements from August, came after internal ANC politicking had handed the council to the DA for several months. Nine ANC councillors were expelled. The December 2013 by-election returned the council to the ANC.

But six independent candidates, several of them expelled ANC councillors, claimed vote-rigging and election irregularities such as registration of voters in wards they do not live after many of them were bused in. At the time the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) said despite the issues, given the number of votes, the outcome of the by-election was not affected, and the results stood. However, the IEC suspended its Tlokwe official, who then resigned as disciplinary proceedings were getting under way.

About two years after the independents led by one of their numbers, David Kham, turned to the courts over the by-election irregularities, the Constitutional Court on 30 November 2015 ruled there needed to be sufficient verifiable details to ensure voters were indeed living in the ward they were registered in. In a unanimous judgment finding the IEC had failed to uphold its statutory responsibilities, the court set aside that by-election. It also cautioned against intimidation and other practices that hamper canvassing, political advertising and the like.

Following the Constitutional Court judgment, a new Tlokwe by-election was scheduled in February 2016, but postponed after further concerns over adequate records of voters’ residential addresses. Other by-elections elsewhere in the country were also postponed as the IEC turned to the Constitutional Court for an order clarifying what it meant by verifiable details. That hearing is set down for 9 May.

Addresses are particularly important in municipal elections because ballots are cast for a ward councillor to represent local interests, while proportional representation councillors are appointed in proportion to the ballots cast for a particular party.

If there is one thing the past, and last, voter registration weekend has shown, it is that the commission database may show voters as registered, but not necessarily with addresses. There have been plenty of tweets, and media reports, indicating voters were confirmed as registered, but not with addresses or not in the areas where they have cast their votes for years. Several permutations of this emerged. The issue of addresses reflected on the voters’ roll, which is displayed at municipal offices, and the implications for the right to privacy are a separate issue.

On Tuesday Co-operative Governance Deputy Minister Andries Nel told parliamentarians he also received two text messages from the IEC – one confirming he was registered in Pretoria, where he has voted for the past 20 years, and a second saying there was no address behind his name. “I’m registered at the wrong voting district, but in the right ward,” he added. “This illustrates the IEC’s dilemma.”

In its Constitutional Court papers, the IEC says out of the 7.9-million voters without addresses, 83 percent or 6.5-million have been registered in their wards since 2014, and of those, 3-million since 2005. “These are not fly-by-night, bused-in voters,” Nel told parliamentarians.

But there are real concerns over the upcoming local government elections, including the potential disenfranchisement of millions of voters. Government’s response has been to establish committees: the elections inter-ministerial task team headed by Van Rooyen, a task team of officials and then a subcommittee led by Statistics South Africa and the Post Office of South Africa to look at rolling out geographical identifiers, which show up on GPS, instead of addresses.

Co-operative governance director-general Vusi Madonsela on Tuesday told parliamentarians the process of developing geographic identifiers was now under way to facilitate the Tlokwe and other postponed by-elections. But there is no way these could be rolled out countrywide for the municipal poll.

Ironically, as the Electoral Commission on Tuesday bragged about signing up an additional 1.3-million new voters to boost registration levels to just over 26-million South Africans, or 77 percent, there emerged the troubles this ever-changing voters’ roll is causing the Municipal Demarcation Board. Wards must contain a certain number of voters. But the number of wards and councillors are determined by an MEC. Only then does the board come in for the actual physical delimitations.

However, that means the Municipal Demarcation Board frequently faces protests by communities dissatisfied with the new arrangements as happened most recently in Malamulele and Vuwani in Limpopo. The Vuwani case is headed to the courts next week. Board chairperson Jane Thupana on Tuesday requested that the demarcation process should happen as far removed from election times as possible to avoid politicians being able to make hay from the process.

There are 101 days left before the 3 August local government elections, and the IEC needs about 75 days to pull off its logistics, even without any further requirements to vet addresses. So it’s all eyes on the Constitutional Court, which has been asked to clarify what it meant by sufficiently verifiable addresses.

For the IEC, never before in 22 years is so much riding on an election. The way South Africa has conducted its polls has won praise on the African continent and elsewhere. But opposition parties have raised the spectre of institutional capture over the commission following the appointment of IEC boss Vuma Mashinini, a former presidential special adviser. These claims by opposition and several civil society organisations – alongside criticism from the IFP that using members of the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) as voting station presiding officers was tantamount to interference as the union through labour federation Cosatu is aligned to the ANC – have been pooh-poohed as unsubstantiated and mere politicking.

But for the Electoral Commission the proof is in the pudding come municipal polling day. DM

Photo: Some of 70 thousand supporters cheer as they gather during the final African National Congress (ANC) election rally in Soweto, South Africa, 15 May 2011. . EPA/KIM LUDBROOK