Should we hold 2021 local government elections or not?
By Ebrahim Fakir
2021 is the year that local government elections were to be held.
As per Section 159 of the Constitution, Act 108 of 1996, “Terms of Municipal Councils”, the term of a municipal council, may be no more than five years, as determined by national legislation and the Local Government : Municipal Structures Act 117 of 1998, with Section 24 prescribing that “the term of municipal councils is five years, calculated from the day following the date set for the previous election of all municipal councils”.
The elections must therefore be held within 90 days of the date of the expiry of the term of municipal councils, hence a term of five years and 90 days.
[LISTEN] Holomisa’s Calls for an Interim SA Government a Bad Idea & More on the ASRI Report with Ebrahim Fakir
Apr 10, 2021
Political analyst Ebrahim Fakir says it is very surprising that UDM leader Bantu Holomisa has called for an “interim government” when there is a legitimately elected government in place.
Fakir was speaking to Radio Islam on Friday during the ASRI report.
Holomisa called for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to relinquish power and an interim government to run the country until the 2024 general elections.
Fakir says the proposal by Holomisa for an interim government is a bad idea.
It may be prudent to delay local government elections by 6 to 8 months - analyst
1 April 2021 5:06 PM
Political analyst Ebrahim Fakir explains why the IEC should consider postponing the local government elections.
Fakir, who s the Director of Programmes at the Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute, says hosting an election without due caution could prove to be a super-spreader event.
He s written an opinion piece outlining why a limited postponement might be necessary.
By law, the elections should take place between August and November 2021.
The EFF has argued that the elections should be postponed to 2024.
Fakir says he does not support the idea of extending the current local government term by another three years.
JUDITH FEBRUARY: SA’s electoral system is weakened by the lack of accountability
opinion
Given the daily dose of the Zondo commission into state capture and what seems like endless stories of the failure by government to deliver basic services, the accountability link between citizens and their public representatives appears to be seriously compromised. Political parties themselves also appear unable to muster the internal democratic capacity to hold their members to account as they should.
We have also heard it said many times before: the South African electoral system does not provide a sufficient link between the citizen and the elected representative. Many have argued that our proportional representation list system diminishes levels of accountability. Yet, we have also seen our local government system that has greater built-in accountability fail dismally in relation to links with citizens and accountability.