Currently, South Africa holds two sets of elections every two years, with one focusing on choosing municipal leaders and the other on electing national and provincial leaders.
ANC secretary general Ace Magashule said, in a statement following its national working committee last week, that the impact of Covid-19 on the elections would be discussed by the ANC and other political parties at the national party liaison committee, which is convened by the IEC.
The final option stemmed from a Constitutional Court outcome, declaring the country’s Electoral Act unconstitutional, and ordering it to be amended to allow independent candidates to run in the provincial and national elections.
The chief electoral officer at the IEC said the downside of merging the elections would be national matters dominating discussions.
He said the IEC was almost done capturing addresses for the voters’ roll as per the Constitutional Court judgment ahead of the 2016 polls and that the matter - should a synchronised election take place - would have no bearing.
