The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) announced on Wednesday its readiness to deliver the 2021 municipal elections during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The elections will be held on October 27, with a national voter registration weekend on July 17 and 18.

IEC chairperson Glen Mashinini was speaking during the commission’s virtual launch of the 2021 municipal elections and said this year’s elections were taking place in the most unprecedented and abnormal circumstances in the country’s history.

South Africa is facing a third wave of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic.

The commission says a readiness assessment was conducted in consultation with health and disaster management authorities.

Mashinini went on to explain that the commission had also drawn extensively on the experiences of more than 100 countries and territories around the world which had successfully held elections under Covid-19 conditions.

The IEC assured South Africans that effective mitigation measures would be in place to ensure that the elections were conducted safely, adding that these protocols have been developed and tested successfully in over 150 by-elections over the past 7 months.

The commission has also appealed to all stakeholders to rally behind the elections to ensure a free, fair and safe election process.

CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM AND FAIRNESS

Mashinini said over the past 27 years South Africa had set strong precedents and high standards against which to judge the success of the country’s elections.

He said that the IEC and South Africa faced the dilemma of whether these same standards of freedom and fairness apply without amendment under such abnormal and challenging conditions.

While remaining true to the imperative of the country’s Constitution, he said the IEC could not be oblivious to the threat posed by the pandemic to the people, economy and the country’s democracy.

“The commission is literally walking on tight rope. On one side is the tyranny of elections becoming a super spreader event, leading to further loss of human lives, and on the other side is the tyranny of failure to adhere to the dictates of our Constitution,” Mashinini said.

The IEC recently appointed the former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke to conduct an independent review, assessing free and fair elections under such abnormal circumstances.

Mashinini said this process may identify additional mitigation measures to further fortify the elections against the impact of the pandemic, adding that this will help guide the IEC to a better understanding of free, fair and safe elections.