Publications
Partners
Ballot papers may no longer use a lucky draw for the top position followed by an alphabetic sequence.
The Independent Electoral Commission told Parliament yesterday that it was discussing other ways of drawing up ballot papers.
The new sequence would solve the problem of political parties that had similar colours, logos and even similar names following each other on the ballot paper.
In May 2014, an obscure party from Matatiele, the African Independent Congress was just above the ANC on the ballot paper and a number of ANC leaders had informally contested that the AIC’s proximity to their party confused voters.
The party has the same green, black and yellow colours as the ANC.
The AIC won close to 100 000 votes in the 2014 general elections and secured three seats in the National Assembly.
IEC commissioner Reverend Bongani Finca told Parliament’s portfolio committee on home affairs that the practice whereby parties that have names and colours that are similar following one another in the ballot paper will be a thing of the past.
The IEC uses a system whereby political parties are invited to a draw and whichever party is successful in the draw becomes the first on the ballot paper and the rest of the parties follow alphabetically after that party.
“That practice was criticised by international observers,” Finca told MPs.
“That what they observed at the last election that there were two parties with almost similar names and the colours were almost similar as well can create confusion to the voter,” said Finca.
He said the IEC took what the international observers said seriously and “we have gone back to the drawing board to try and see how we can avoid that kind of situation”.
He said the commission was discussing a possibility of having a draw where there are numbers for all the parties; and the sequencing could be based on the number.
Finca revealed this development while responding to a question from ANC MP Debbie Raphuti, who said: “I hope that you are going to assist us because we had a challenge, I don’t know if it’s plagiarism…”
“People took colours of other political parties, which I really think was totally unfair. The issue of the ANC versus that other party was very confusing for our voters.”
The IEC was in Parliament to talk about its preparations for the local government elections to be held later this year.
