Voting stations in the Makana municipal area and the rest of the country will open on 5 and 6 February to allow voters to register for this year's local elections. Voting for local and district councils across the country is set to take place before the end of May 2011.
Voting stations in the Makana municipal area and the rest of the country will open on 5 and 6 February to allow voters to register for this year's local elections. Voting for local and district councils across the country is set to take place before the end of May 2011.
At a launch function in Pretoria on Wednesday, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said it expected to register more than 1.5 million voters during its registration campaign ahead of the elections.
While voters who are already registered will not need to go through the process again for the local elections, you may need to re-register in a different ward, following last year's following last year's redrawing of ward maps.
Until recently, Makana Municipality had only 12 wards – but the Demarcation Board has since adjusted boundaries so that there are now 14 wards in our local municipality. The change means that in the coming municipal elections, Makana voters will elect 14 ward councillors and 14 proportional representation councillors – making a 28-member council to replace the current one of 24 members.
A date for the actual election has not been set, but according to legislation, it must take place not more than 90 days after the term of the current government expires on 1 March.
In the most recent national elections, in 2009, there were 127 registered political parties. Since then 26 new parties have registered. One of these is the Makana Independent New Deal (Mind) which intends to contest the local government elections in Makana.
Interim chairperson of Mind, Jock McConnachie, said, “We are very excited to have received the notification and will now be pulling out all the stops to be ready for the elections whenever they take place."
He said Mind would show itself to be a serious competitor in the Makana local government elections by being the first local party to issue its manifesto. At the IEC's launch function in Pretoria, chief electoral officer, Pansy Tlakula revealed the IEC's 2011 local government election logo and slogan, "Love your South Africa 2011 municipal elections".
The elections will take place in eight metropolitan councils, 226 local councils, 44 district councils and 4 277 wards. All the 20 868 voting districts will have their stations open for registration during the weekend of 5 and 6 February 2011, from 8am to 5pm on each day.
The IEC has also activated its 0800 11 8000 toll-free number. An SMS facility has been made available to voters to check their registration details by cellphone. All a voter has to do is to type in their identity number and send it to 32810 and they will in return receive confirmation of their registration details.
