Big question over South Africa’s ‘extra’ public holiday this year
South Africa is set to gain an extra public holiday this year as the nation heads to the polls to vote – but given some of the new laws and sweeping changes made to elections in the country, there are questions about whether or not the elections will be delayed.
Although the official date of the 2024 election has not yet been pronounced, it has historically been declared a public holiday by the President to ensure that all South Africans can vote.
The last national election took place on 8 May 2019, and it is anticipated that the 2024 election will fall around the same time.
As per the constitution, the elections can occur between April and August.
However, Bank of America (BofA) said that there is a growing consensus that the elections could be delayed so the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) can educate voters on the changes since the last elections in 2019.
“Since then, more parties and independent candidates have emerged, meaning the list of candidates might not fit onto one page, as is usually the case,” BofA said.
“Therefore, the election officials need to prepare and educate voters accordingly.”
“No official date has yet been announced by the President. We assume that this could be made at the State of the Nation Address scheduled for 8 February.”
New candidates
In April last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law the Electoral Amendment Bill of 2022, which allows for the nomination of independent candidates to the National Assembly.
The Bill was created following the Constitutional Court judgement in the matter between New Nation Movement NPC & others V President of the Republic of South Africa & others, which declared the Electoral Act of 1998 unconstitutional for specifying that election to the National Assembly and provincial legislatures may only be achieved through membership of political parties.
As per Schedule 1A of the Act, seats in the National Assembly will be divided into equal halves. Two hundred seats are awarded to regional or provincial votes, while the other 200 are reserved for compensatory or national votes.
Independent candidates are able to contest for the 200 regional seats, while the other 200 seats are designed to ensure that the election is proportionally representative and can only be contested by political parties.
Although the Independent Candidates Association South Africa NPC’s challenged this split and requested a 350/50 seat split, the Constitutional Court ruled against this.
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