Julius Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), has called for local government elections (LGE) which are due this year to be postponed until 2024.
Constitutionally the elections cannot be held later than November. However Malema said the elections should be postponed because ‘the current climate does not allow for an open campaign, engagement with prospective voters due to fear of participating in the massive spread of the virus, as well as to prepare election machinery’. Malema said that the LGE should be synchronised with the national and provincial elections which are due in 2024.
Herman Mashaba, the former mayor of Johannesburg and leader of a new party, ActionSA, reacted to Malema’s call for the postponement of the election. He was quoted as saying the call for a postponement was: ‘grossly irresponsible and hypocritical for a man who once labelled Jacob Zuma a constitutional delinquent’. Mashaba also said delaying the municipal elections would mean that municipal governments would be governing without a mandate from voters.
The secretary-general of the African National Congress, Ace Magashule, last year said his party also favoured the collapse of the LGE into the national and provincial elections.
Daily Friend writer, Ivo Vegter, has previously written on why merging the various elections into one would be a bad idea.