Election postponement would cost more than R500m, CEI says

JOHANNESBURG – The Southern Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says postponing the next election would cost more than R500 million.

This is contained in documents the IEC has filed with the Constitutional Court, opposing an application by the newly formed South African Labor Party aimed at delaying the elections, among other things.

The Labor Party argues that it was unable to meet the deadline to submit its list of candidates due to technical problems with the CIS online portal.

The request will be heard on Wednesday, along with two others from Ace Magashule’s African Transformation Congress and the African Alliance of Social Democrats, who are on the same wavelength.

Generally speaking, all parties want the filing window to reopen. But the Labor Party has gone a step further.

Their first major appeal was the Electoral Tribunal, which dismissed their cases on April 15.

The Labor Party said certificates had already been issued to candidates and added that an extension of the deadline would not be enough.

The party also wants the elections to be postponed and for the court to order the IEC to request the same from President Cyril Ramaphosa.

However, the IEC says that while this would indeed be the inevitable outcome if the proposal submission window were to reopen, it would be “immensely expensive” and would come with a price tag of R587 million.

Their position is that the online portal did not malfunction and that “similarly situated parties were able to comply.”

The IEC generally blames parties for leaving their submissions to the last minute.