IEC welcomes election date as Friday marks final registration day

IEC

Cape Town — The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has welcomed the announcement of the election date by President Cyril Ramaphosa, and urged South Africans to register to vote by Friday.

Ramaphosa announced that the elections are set to take place on 29 May and the IEC said it will pull out all the stops to prepare for the upcoming elections as it reiterates its commitment to ensure the 2024 election day is a success.

The IEC already hosted two highly-successful voter registration weekends, as well as an online and locally ran online campaign. This brought the total number of voters to 27.6 million voters. They said all eligible voters have until this coming Friday to register to vote still.

“The commission reminds South Africans that, while the date has been set and announced, eligible voters have until February 23 to register. The date is the anticipated day of the proclamation of the election date,” the IEC said.

Once registrations close on Friday, the election date will be proclaimed and gazetted. The IEC will then publish the the election timetable in the Government Gazette after consultation with the national party liaison committee.

The timetable will detail dates on which political parties that have registered to contest the elections have to submit their candidates’ nominations for public representatives in parliament and provincial legislatures.

“The commission reminds eligible voters of the general rule in elections. That is, a person must register where they live and vote at the voting station where they are registered. The only exception to the rule is that a voter may vote outside the voting district of registration upon notifying the commission by a date to be regulated by the timetable.” it said.

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Compiled by Matthew Petersen

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