THE 2021 Local Government Elections will be officially held on October 27 this year.

The date was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday night.
 
This year’s polls will be the sixth time under South Africa’s democratic dispensation that voters will elect leadership and public representatives at metropolitan, district and local level.
 
In a statement, the Presidency said the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, will follow the necessary legal process to proclaim the date and undertake other requirements.
 
“The President urges eligible – and especially first-time voters – to ensure they are registered to participate in the elections which provide the basis for development and service delivery closest to where citizens live,” the Presidency said in a statement.

Opposition parties such as the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are demanding the elections to be postponed until 2024, raising fears of COVID-19 infections.

Ramaphosa hinted last week that government would go ahead with local government polls this year as scheduled.

Addressing a by-election campaign in Durban last Thursday in his capacity as ANC president, Ramaphosa said as the ruling party they believed that the upcoming local government elections should go ahead, adding that the governing party was ready for them.

“Let us go to elections because then we can choose the ANC that will take us forward. If you vote for another party, that is regressing. Let’s do that [vote ANC] next week and throughout the other six by-elections. We shall triumph, even in October when we go to local government elections,” said Ramaphosa.

The ANC president said government has had to work harder for the people of SA during the trying Covid-19 times, emphasising the need to go ahead with local government elections.

He counted increments in social grants and the R350 special relief grant for the unemployed as some of the ways the governing ANC showed care for the poor, even though there was “no money” for the grant to be extended.

• Inside Metros