IMPROVING LIVES THROUGH DATA ECOSYSTEMS

South Africa will have its seventh democratic elections in 2024. Every five years, South Africa holds national and provincial elections to elect the new National Assembly and provincial legislatures in each province. The 2024 national and provincial elections date will be announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in due course. In terms of the Constitution, elections must be held within 90 days of the expiry date of the current term of the National Assembly and provincial legislatures being 21 May 2024. For the first time, South Africans abroad will register as voters using an online self-registration portal. In addition, people who are not associated with political parties may stand as independent candidates to contest national and provincial elections. This year, voters will get three ballot papers and not two like previous elections. The first is a national ballot to vote for a political party to represent you in the National Assembly. The second ballot is the new regional ballot which will be used to vote for political parties or independent candidates contesting in the region for elections to the National Assembly. The third one is the provincial ballot to vote for political parties or independent candidates contesting elections of the provincial legislature. The online voter registration portal https://registertovote.elections.org.za/Welcome is still open for first time voters to register and for those voters who are already registered to update their registration details preceding the proclamation date before the elections. This month, the educational article is based on the report titled Gender Series Volume X: Gender disparities in access to and use of ICT in South Africa, 2016 to 2022 (Report No: 03-10-27) published by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) on 26 October 2023. Also, have a look at our monthly crossword puzzle and solutions for the November 2023 puzzle. Articles published in this issue are based on the results of industry surveys conducted for November and December 2023.

Download Mbalo brief February 2024