National election set for ‘big ballots’

It is two months until South Africans take to the polls in the country’s seventh democratic national and provincial election and, for the first time, voters will be faced with “ballots as big as never before”. As a result, voting, and counting of the votes, will take longer this year, according to IEC provincial manager Siyabonga Maki. This is to include independent candidates who, feeling the IEC was doing a disservice to the country by excluding independent candidates, went to the Constitutional Court and won. In all, 14,662 candidates have been nominated to contest the 887 seats available in the National Assembly and the nine legislatures. The final list of candidates contesting the elections will be published by the IEC on April 10. In Behind The Herald Headlines with Daron Mann this week, Maki explains what this means and how it will work.  The Herald