WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN 2000-01?

The 2000-01 elections will have the advantage of following the 1999 national and provincial elections. An entirely new voters' roll, based on bar-coded identity documents, is being drawn up by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) for the 1999 elections.

This voters' roll was tested countrywide in the 1999 elections, when voters cast national and provincial ballots in the area in which they were registered. Thus, after the 1999 election voters are familiar with the idea that they need a bar-coded ID in order to vote, and that they are only able to cast their votes in the voting district where they live.

The IEC has been charged with the responsibility to run elections in all three spheres of government. This is unlike the past elections, when the IEC ran the 1994 national and provincial elections while a coordinating committee, the Elections Task Group, oversaw the 1995-96 local elections which were organised locally with provincial input.

MUNICIPALITIES AND PROVINCIAL AND NATIONAL ELECTIONS

The IEC intends to run elections for all spheres of government using municipalities as their agents throughout the country. Municipalities will be expected to run the logistics of the elections using funds provided by the IEC.

However the current transformation of local government, which will result in the rationalisation of a number of councils, has complicated the IEC's task. For voting in rural areas, the IEC has approached district councils and asked them to undertake the electoral process. In the cases where primary structures have the capacity to run the elections, the IEC has appointed them as agents.

Things to think about: managing elections

Question: In the 1995-96 elections, most local councils had to employ temporary staff to assist with the administration. Metropolitan councils had to pay a substantial amount of money to pay these temporary workers. Will all municipalities have the capacity or the resources to act as electoral agents?

Answer: The IEC's task is to make sure the municipalities have the capacity to run with the ball, and if they do not, the system will be reviewed.

The IEC will supply the necessary resources, although it hopes to make use of council staff mainly. An official says: "What we are looking for really is the willingness and ability to do the job, not to provide resources in terms of money. We are hoping that we are going to have fairly extensive use of municipal staff, but probably not on a full-time basis. We are trying to get Municipal Managers (formerly known as CEOs) appointed, but we know that the job will take up a lot of additional time, overtime, virtually."

The exact relationships between the IEC and municipalities, as well as the logistics of the 2000-01 election still have to be worked out. The Department of Constitutional Development will pursue this at a national level with the IEC.