Cabinet has commended the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) for the successful by-elections held in 95 wards across 55 municipalities last Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Addressing the media in Pretoria on Thursday, Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola said the municipal elections remain a pillar of sharpening the country\u2019s democracy at district and municipal levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cCabinet thanked all South Africans who took part in the by-elections which were held for the first time after election activities were suspended in March, owing to the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic,\u201d Lamola said.<\/p>\n
The commission said the elections proceeded smoothly and peacefully.<\/p>\n
Announcing the results, IEC Vice chairperson, Janet Love, said the commission was encouraged by the turnout of voters which was within the range for by-elections held since the 2016 Municipal Elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese elections were extraordinary in that they were the first to be held in South Africa under COVID-19 conditions and were the largest number of by-elections held on a single day in our history,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
According to Love, the average turnout was 37.83%, compared to an average of 38.73% for by-elections over the past four years.<\/p>\n
The by-elections were contested by 40 political parties, with a total of 444 candidates certified as contestants. This included 19 independent candidates.<\/p>\n
Of the candidates, 305 (69%) were male and 139 (31%) were females. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cabinet has commended the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) for the successful by-elections held in 95 wards across 55 municipalities last Wednesday. Addressing the media in Pretoria on Thursday, Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola said the municipal elections remain a pillar of sharpening the country\u2019s democracy at district and municipal levels. \u201cCabinet thanked all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-172598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}