Rustenburg – The African National Congress in North West said it accepted and would abide by the decision of the Constitutional Court which found that recent by-elections in Tlokwe had not been free and fair, the party’s provincial secretary Dakota Legoete said on Monday.
The Constitutional Court on Monday declared that the by-elections conducted in Tlokwe 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. The outcome of those by-elections was set aside and fresh by-elections are to be held.
“The elections of Tlokwe were postponed on two occasions and the ANC remained patient and worked with the people resulting in the resounding victory we scored,” he said.
“The outcome of the last elections in Tlokwe confirmed a lot of progress we made in overcoming the legacies of apartheid in Tlokwe,” Legoete said. “The African National Congress will immediately ignite its ever readiness approach to mobilize the people and reclaim Tlokwe municipality as we did in the past.”
The applicants were eight independent candidates who contested the by-elections. The ANC won all the contested wards except one.
The court on Monday also declared that when registering a voter to vote in a particular voting district after the date of the order the Electoral Commission (IEC) was obliged to obtain sufficient particularity of the voter’s address to enable it to ensure that the voter is at the time of registration ordinarily resident in that voting district.
It further declared that the Electoral Commission was obliged by the Electoral Act to provide all candidates in municipal elections a copy of the segment of the national voters’ roll, which must comply with certain criteria.
Xolile David Kham and other former ANC councillors in Tlokwe were unsuccessful candidates in the wards in which each of them had stood for election. Before the elections, they had lodged objections with the IEC , concerning voter registrations in their respective wards.
After he had lost a by-election in September 2013, Kham lodged an objection with the IEC but it was rejected.
In the December by-elections in six wards, the applicants complained of the delay in receiving the segments of the national voters’ roll to be used for the purposes of the by-elections. Furthermore, those segments did not include residential addresses for any of the voters, rendering it difficult, if not impossible, for candidates to find, visit and canvass voters.
They approached the Electoral Court for an order that the December by-elections be postponed and for further relief, however the Electoral Court was unable to convene to hear the application. The by-elections proceeded as scheduled and the six applicants who were candidates lost.
After the December by-elections and in response to the present litigation, the IEC conducted its own investigation into the allegations that voters not entitled to registration in these wards had been registered and that their participation had affected the result of the by-elections.
The IEC concluded that there were a number of such registrations and that some of those voters had voted, but that in no case had they done so in sufficient numbers to affect the result of the elections.
When the Electoral Court heard the matter it rejected their claims and dismissed the application.
The former councillors then approached the Constitutional Court, seeking an order setting aside the by-election results in eight wards relying on the irregularities that emerged from the IEC’s own investigation.
Their complaint was that on the evidence of irregularities in the IEC’s own affidavit, the by-elections could not be said to have been free and fair and accordingly they should be set aside.
The Court held that the constitutional right of the independent candidates to participate in the elections was impaired as it was necessary to give full weight to the constitutional commitment to free and fair elections and to its safeguard of the right to offer oneself for election to public office.
The IEC said it committed itself to implementing the orders of the court without delay and stood ready to hold fresh by-elections in the affected wards in Tlokwe as soon as possible.
African News Agency
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