The Pan Africanist Movement will top the Proportional Representation (PR) ballot papers in all municipalities where it is contesting in the 2016 Municipal Elections after it was randomly drawn from a list of 206 parties contesting the elections.
All other parties will follow in alphabetical order.
In municipalities where the Pan Africanist Movement is not contesting the elections‚ the next party in alphabetical order will appear at the top of the ballot paper‚ the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said in a statement on Wednesday.
The draw applies only to ballot papers for the PR element of the municipal elections — the council ones printed with a yellow background and the District Council PR ballot printed with a green background.
Ballot papers for ward candidates‚ which are printed with a white/grey background‚ are traditionally in alphabetical order according to the surname of candidates.
The use of a random draw to select the party which will top the ballot paper has been the established practice for all elections over the past 21 years of democracy in South Africa as the fairest way to choose the order of the ballot paper.
South Africa has seen a relatively steady growth in the number of political parties contesting municipal elections since 2000. In that year‚ there were a total of 79 political parties which contested the various municipalities. Six years later that number grew 23% to 97 — and it grew a further 25% between 2006 and 2011.
The 2016 Municipal Elections will see a record number of political parties contesting the eight metropolitan municipalities‚ 205 local municipalities and 44 district councils. A total of 204 political parties submitted candidate lists by last week’s deadline — almost 69% more than the 122 which contested in 2011.
The Western Cape will have the highest number of parties contesting (77) followed by Limpopo (56)‚ Gauteng (45) and the Eastern Cape (43). The smallest number of parties will contest in the Northern Cape (18).
The metropolitan council with the longest PR ballot paper will be the Western Cape with 37 parties.
The shortest metro will be Buffalo City in the Eastern Cape with 10 parties.
Here is a list of the number of parties contesting the metro councils:
Metropolitan Council Parties Contesting
BUF - Buffalo City 10
CPT - City of Cape Town 37
EKU - Ekurhuleni 26
ETH - eThekwini 26
JHB - City of Johannesburg 28
MAN - Mangaung 13
NMA - Nelson Mandela Bay 19
TSH - Tshwane Metro 20
Four municipalities in the Eastern Cape — Blue Crane Route‚ Great Kei‚ Ngqushwa and Inxuba Yethemba — share the shortest PR ballot paper with just three parties contesting each municipality.
While the IEC is still in the process of validating the various candidate nominations received by the deadline‚ indications are that there will be approximately 970 independent candidates who will contest these elections. In 2006 there were 663 independent candidates. This grew to 774 in 2011.
The final issuing of certificates to contesting parties and candidates will take place on July 1 2016 after which the printing of ballot papers will begin.
Voters in metros will complete two ballot papers and voters in all other municipalities will complete three ballot papers. The IEC plans to print approximately 80 million copies of ballot papers to ensure sufficient ballots for all voters. — TMG Digital
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