Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) chairwoman Brigalia Bam on Friday ducked questions about DA leader Helen Zille's claim that she said South Africans abroad should not be allowed to vote because they had deserted the country.

"You know, I can barely hear you. I am driving," Bam told Sapa.

"Have you called my office? Speak to Lydia Young," she added, and gave the number for the IEC liaison officer.

When told that reporters had persistently but fruitlessly sought comment from Young for three days, Bam said: "Go back to her. She is the one who will deal with all of this," and hung up.

Young and other IEC staffers have maintained since Wednesday that they were unable to reach Bam to verify whether she had indeed made the statement and whether this reflected the IEC's views.

"We are working on this. We will get back to you but we have not been able to reach her," Young told Sapa on Friday morning.

Sapa eventually succeeded to get through to Bam on her cellphone on Friday morning.

Business Day on Wednesday reported Zille as saying that she was worried about the independence of the IEC and that recent meetings with the body about the rights of South Africans living abroad to cast their ballots on April 22 did little to reassure her.

The daily said she told a breakfast meeting at the Institute for
Race Relations that talks with the IEC had left her "distressed", especially after comments by a senior IEC official.

"In my meeting with them, a senior IEC official asked me why they should give the vote to South Africans who ran away and who were badmouthing the country," Zille was quoted as saying.

The opposition leader declined to identify the official in the public gathering, but later confirmed to journalists that she was referring to Bam.

Lawyers for the DA, the Freedom Front Plus, the Inkatha Freedom
Party and expatriate Willem Richter this week argued before the
Constitutional Court that South Africans living abroad should be allowed to vote in the April elections.

The court had been asked to confirm a judgment in the Pretoria High Court last month that certain provisions of the Electoral Act were unconstitutional, because every citizen should have the right to vote.

In 1994, South Africans living abroad were allowed to vote in the country's first democratic elections, but the external vote was restricted in the next election five years later.

This remained the case in 2004, to the dismay of the opposition who claimed that it disenfranchises millions of South Africans.

The Constitutional Court had reserved judgment in the matter.

The issue was taken up directly with Bam by former president FW de Klerk earlier this year.

He asked her to give a wider interpretation to the act to allow those abroad to cast their ballots, but she refused saying it was up to Parliament or the courts to do so.