We can all learn from problems encountered by some in the elections nomination process - IOL

The Electoral Commission has ruled out any additional opportunity for political parties or independent candidates to capture nominations after the August 28 deadline, following concerns raised by the ANC. There are lessons in this for all interested parties and the way complaints are raised or dealt with in public may need to be incorporated in the electoral code of conduct.

Political parties and independent candidates interested in taking part in the upcoming local government elections had more than two months to submit their nominations.

To ensure that every interested party had sufficient time, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) kept its online candidate nomination system operational throughout the nomination process, including on the day nominations closed.

Therefore, it was a great puzzle why any candidate or political party would turn around and complain after nominations closed last week. The worst part was that the party complaining the loudest is the African National Congress, the oldest continuous liberation organisation on the continent.

Thankfully, there was no confusion coming from the side of the IEC. It quickly rejected any possibility of affording any party any additional time to capture outstanding candidates. Indeed, it would be against the "free and fair elections" principle.

The commission must be commended for the transparent and quick manner it has dealt with this challenge, letting everyone know where it stood and pointing anyone with issues relating to the candidate nomination process to the correct channel or processes. By being frank and direct, the commission helped protect the integrity of the electoral process and the public's trust in it. 

Fortunately, for the ANC and any party that has issues still needing ironing out, there exists for this purpose the National Political Liaison Committee, comprising political parties represented in the National Assembly.

There have been blunders big and small as well as deadlines missed over the years since the dawn of our young but steadily maturing democracy. There have been technical, administrative problems and so on. Among the notable blunders of the past is the failure of the then-fast growing and newly-formed National Freedom Party – a splinter from the Inkatha Freedom Party – to pay the IEC registration fee leading to its candidates being disqualified from taking part in the 2016 local government elections. These things happen and we all can learn from them. But the show goes on. 

Among the other milestones in the long and detailed elections calendar is the signing of the Electoral Code of Conduct, scheduled for later this month. It might be a good idea to include such issues in the discussions leading to the signing or in the code itself. We state this because complaints such as the ANC’s this week may have an effect of diminishing the trust in the electoral process in the eyes of ordinary citizens, which must be avoided at all costs.