What did they spend? Party Funding and Campaigns in SA …

By: Judith February
With the elections over and the African National Congress celebrating its victory, it is clear that, along with the people, the money has also spoken.
Estimates put the ANC’s election spending at between R200million and R400m. No one can be sure of the actual amount, given the lack of transparency in the funding of [...]

Archbishop Calls for Calm During Elections

The Election Monitoring Network released a statement to the press today – see the video of the Archbishop delivering the statement here – http://www.zoopy.com/idasa
More at www.electionmonitoringnetwork.org

Opposition Politics – Turnout is Key

This brief discusses the landscape of opposition politics and explains some of the issues that may affect the opposition’s performance in election 2009, with regards to possible shifts of electoral support to the opposition.
Read more about the socio-economic landscape and disaffected voters, fragmentation within the opposition, race and class, the style of opposition politics that [...]

Are food parcels being abused to manipulate voters?

By Christi van der Westhuizen
www.electionmonitoringnetwork.org
‘‘I‘m going to make sure that if you advertise (sic) an article about my name on the newspaper I will deal with you… If you go to the paper with that thing you’re going to deal with the consequences thereafter… I am not threatening you, you are threatening yourself. You cannot [...]

Locals Work Together to Keep the Peace – Bitou

Kwanokuthula community in Bitou municipality (Plettenberg Bay) has seen political tensions simmering in the lead up to the election. The Election Monitoring Network (EMN) deployed monitors there to provide a visible presence of civil society within the politically tense communities. As part of the process of this deployment EMN met with different stakeholders including [...]

Zuma – More Questions Than Answers

- By Judith February -
The charges against Jacob Zuma have been dropped and we are all being urged to ‘move on’.  It is now abundantly clear that what we have witnessed over the past 8 years has been the ANC’s inter-necine battles simmering underneath the genteel edifice of our Constitutional democracy. It makes a change [...]

Race and Class Impact on the Elections

South Africa’s stark levels of inequality are highly racialised. Fifteen years of democracy have shown an increase in inequality within race groups, particularly among black South Africans.
So what impact will this have on the election in April?
Read more to explore the notion that party identification in South Africa may be driven more by class interests [...]

Managing Conflict in Elections

South Africans are keen to have a peaceful, free and fair election. The Election Monitoring Network has developed a toolkit for organisations who want to contribute to the prevention, management and mitigation of violence over the election period.

Elections and Human Rights

While the definition of human rights seems simple and makes perfect sense to most of us, this unfortunately does not mean that all people everywhere have enjoyed equal rights through the ages. Human rights have always been, and continue to be, at the root of many struggles for national, group and personal freedom. As elections [...]

Citizens Concerns About Upcoming Elections

The campaign for the 2009 South African election has been more competitive than we’ve seen before. The formation of the Congress of the People (COPE) has upped the stakes, and the country has witnessed some acrimonious exchanges between COPE and the African National Congress (ANC).  There have also been reports of disrupted meetings and allegations of voter [...]