ZEC one of this election’s major flaws
An excerpt from the latest Bill Watch published by Veritas:
Most of the issues raised in this Bill Watch are basic to the electoral process and should be easily answered, but it has taken a great deal of time and effort wading through the oft-amended, sometimes contradictory provisions of the Electoral Act to find out what the law really is.
If one wants to understand the provisions of the law, one has to look at:
- the Electoral Act, which has been amended five times, the last amendment being published only the day before the electoral proclamation, which was 44 days before polling day;
- the general regulations of 2005, which have also been extensively amended — no fewer than 19 times;
- specific sets of regulations published in 2013 and regulating such matters as the nomination of candidates and the accreditation of observers.On the ZEC official website there are two documents purporting to be the consolidated version of the Electoral Act. The first one does not show the latest amendments. The second, which does, is not entirely accurate, e.g. it leaves out a whole sentence in Section 38(1). The website also purports to have a consolidated version of the Electoral Regulations. It is impossible to download it or even view it.
This Bill Watch would have been much easier to prepare — indeed, it might not have been necessary to prepare it — if the amendments to the Electoral Act had been more clearly drafted, and if ZEC had done its duty under sections 5(d) and 191 of the Act and kept the public informed about all matters relating to the electoral process and ensured that copies of the Act and regulations were available to members of the public at all times.
The Constitutional Court ruling that the elections had to be held by 31 of July led to a headlong rush into elections. This undoubtedly caused ZEC considerable problems. But ZEC should have opposed the application and pointed out its difficulties if the election was held so soon. It is no use ZEC assuring the public that the logistics are in place for the election when there is a lack of communication and transparency and the very obvious fact that in the special voting there was chaos.