Date: 20/09/2004
Source: Ministry of Provincial and Local Government
Title: S Mufamadi: Local Government Elections Preparatory Conference


SPEECH DELIVERED BY MINISTER FOR PROVINCIAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, MR FS MUFAMADI, AT THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS PREPARATORY CONFERENCE, 20 September 2004

Programme Director;
Members of the Executive Councils;
Chairpersons of the Portfolio Committee and the Select Committee;
Our Friends from the Independent Electoral Commission and the Municipal Demarcation Board;
Mayors and Councillors here present;
Distinguished Guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen:

This conference starts us on the way to our destination-of-choice: a successful delivery of "Local Government Elections 2005". Assembled here this morning are stakeholders whose input is essential to the mapping out, as well as to the navigation of the process through to its final accomplishment.

Mr Programme Director, the importance of Local Government Election cannot be overemphasised. They involve a sphere of government whose mere existence goes to the heart of our collective endeavour: the drive to deepen the process of democratisation and to ensure a better life for all our people. We fully understand that the search for this ideal is doomed to futility unless it happens in conditions of heightened public participation in civic affairs. It is for that reason that our local government legislation puts public participation at the centre of its purposes. Voter participation in the electoral process is an important element of public participation in matters of government.

Voter turn-out in our local government elections has exhibited tendencies which are particularly worrying: both the 1995 elections and the year 2000 elections saw an average 48% voter turn-out. Although this scenario is consistent with global trends, what makes it a little disconcerting is the fact that it stands in stark contrast to the high voter-turn out we have seen in the provincial and national elections where the lowest voter-turn out stands at a whopping 76%.

One could understand and plausibly explain this state of affairs in 1995. The context then, was one in which we were still manoeuvring our country out of its historically induced marginalisation of the people from decision-making structures and processes. We need to read the messages that are coming out of recent trends for what they are. For instance, there have been numerous by-elections in the past three years. The highest average poll during that period of 2001-2004 was recorded in the Eastern Cape with 42%. The average voter turnout for by-elections in 2004 is 34,7%. This suggests a decline in levels of public interest in the affairs of local government.

These developments have profound implications for the nature of the democracy we are building in our country. We know that the 1994 democratic breakthrough was brought about by unprecedented levels of mobilisation. Perhaps this is the time for us to pause and give ourselves a sense of our own roots. We need to go back in order to be able to go forward.

The new system of local government has been in place since December 2000. The time has come for us to enter into serious dialogue with the people... they need to tell us what they think of the system, what do they think needs to be done to make the system function more efficiently. Who do they think must do what needs to be done and what is their own role in all this? The same set questions by the way, can appear on the templates that are used respectively by the Municipal Demarcation Board, those who go out to canvass for voter registration, those who conduct voter education as well as of other local government practitioners. I guess I am agitating for a situation where we bring to life again, the same activism that we saw during the liberation struggle. It is that kind of activism that will nudge our democracy into a higher trajectory.

Delegates to this conference will spend the better part of the day working in commissions. Discussions in commissions are necessarily going to focus on the technical details regarding the practical steps we need to unfold in order to actuate the envisaged elections. It is my argument that it is not good enough to produce free and fair elections through a process, which does not capture the imagination of a significant percentage of the population. This conference therefore faces the challenge of helping construct a mode of engagement with the masses that is capable of bringing about a qualitatively new situation. It must help us to overcome the social distantiation of public representatives from the base.

Since the inception of the new local government system considerable effort and resources have gone into improving the quality of contact between the people and their government. The practice of touching base with the people through Imbizo and Ward Councils has become commonplace. At the last count, we found that about 2,700 out of a possible 3,200 ward councils have so far been established. We have been urging our people to take active responsibility for holding their own public representatives accountable for what they do when they are in office.

Although in some instances we have seen a significant amount of progress, the situation could certainly be better. Again, participants in this conference bear a collective responsibility to help us identify and device means of overcoming such counterweights as may exist. These are our obligation and discharge it we must.

Ladies and Gentlemen, in these few words, I record my best wishes for you as you take part in the deliberations of this conference.

Thank you very much.

Issued by: Ministry of Provincial and Local Government
20 September 2004