Decision awaited on expat-voting rights issue

 ■ Adriana Stuijt

March 4 2009 – Johannesburg. South Africa's Constitutional Court reserved judgment on Wednesday in the case brought forward by seven parties to challenge sections of the Electoral Act barring the vast majority of South Africans working abroad from voting there.

The case was set down for Wednesday March 4 and Friday March 6 - however the court insisted that all the arguments be delivered and reserved judgment until this was done. Last month, the Pretoria High Court had issued such an order - and the Constitutional Court is now being asked to confirm or deny the constutitional rights issue. see

ANC already announced election date before court decision:
The caretaker-ANC cabinet has meanwhile, already rushed through the announcement of the election date for April 22 without waiting for this Constitutional Court decision. Also see

To allow the estimated 2-million South Africans abroad to still be allowed to register for voting at the embassies and legations, the court was also asked to order that special provisions be made to extend the legal deadline for the registration for this group: normally, under the rules laid down by the Independent Electoral Commission, no new voters may be registered after the election date has been ratified in Parliament.

The ANC-government fears that the large number of South Africans working abroad will upset the electoral apple-cart to much and is doing everything in its power to prevent citizens living and working abroad, from being able to vote. It is actively opposing the application in court.

The South African government's Home Affairs Department and the Independent Electoral Commission have submitted arguments against the application -- claiming it 'would be a logistical nightmare to ensure that all citizens could cast their ballots overseas. '

They were allowed to vote before - why not now?
However it's been done before without any kind of 'logistical problems": the last time all South Africans working and living abroad were able to vote was in the first democratic election in 1994 - and many hundreds of thousands then voted from foreign embassies and legations, mainly in the United Kingdom.

The British Broadcasting Corporation says in a seperate report earlier this month that there's at least 600,000 South Africans living and working in the UK alone - and more than 2-million in some 46 other countries, mainly forced abroad to seek work because of South Africa's own black-economic-empowerment job reservation laws, which bar most 'whites' from working in the country of their birth since 1994.

Since the 1994 election which put ANC-leader Nelson Mandela into power, foreign voting facilities have however been denied to all but just an elite few - temporary travellers and embassy personnel and their dependants.

It is unclear when judgment will be handed down but with the clock ticking down to the elections on April 22 -- it will have to happen soon. see