Andile Mbanjwa
26 March 2014
Professor Steven Friedman
A public dialogue on South
Africa’s national
elections was held at the Centre for the Book at Gardens in Cape
Town.
The dialogue, which was chaired by
Professor Sakhela Buhlungu, dean of humanities at the University of Cape Town,
and addressed by Professor Steven Friedman, director of the centre for the
study of democracy at the University of Johannesburg, was focusing on the
upcoming elections and the elements around the elections.
Speaking at the dialogue, Friedman
called for the IEC head, Pansy Tlakula to step down as the head of the
commission, following the IFP concerns about some of the IEC officials who are
recruited from the ANC affiliate, SADTU.
Panel
The IFP argued that this will not
ensure free and fair elections.
Friedman said, “If that’s an IFP
concern it needs to be addressed. Elections are very much about confidence. The
elections are very much about people having confidence if the process is fair.
I think if any political party says it doesn’t want particular people in the
electoral committee, those officials then need to be taken very seriously, and
certainly the IFP’s point that SADTU Is affiliated to COSATU, which is an ANC
allied is a valid point. So I think that makes IFP’s point justifiable.”
