Pretoria - The Independent Electoral Commission says it has published the final list of candidates for the May 7 national and provincial elections.
The IEC has provided candidates with certificates confirming their candidacy, said the IEC in Friday.
The final lists show a total of 8 651 candidates who are standing for election on the regional, national and provincial lists of 45 political parties. This is slightly fewer than the 9 117 candidates who appeared on the final lists for the 2009 election.
The IEC said there were 2 089 candidates on national lists, 2 165 candidates on regional lists and 4 397 candidates on provincial lists contesting for 400 National Assembly and 430 provincial legislature seats respectively – giving candidates an overall statistical 1 in 10 chance of election.
“Men continue to make up the bulk of candidates with 59.8 percent of the total candidates compared to 40.2 percent women. This is despite the fact that women registered voters outnumber men 55.9 percent to 45.1 percent.
“However, gender representation continues to show steady improvement over the years: 1999 (26.76%), 2004 (30.65%) and 2009 (38.5%),” said the commission.
Candidate lists for the Western Cape provincial elections show the greatest gender equity with 43 percent women – and the Northern Cape provincial lists are the lowest with 37 percent women.
The parties with the highest percentage of female candidates are:
- Keep It Straight and Simple with 1 of 1 candidate – 100%
- African National Party with 12 of 14 candidates - 85%
- South African Maintenance and Estate Beneficiaries Association with 36 of 47 candidates – 76.6%
With regards to age, candidates over 40 years old comprise 64.86 percent of the total – with candidates under 30 years old comprising just 11.8 percent (1 020) of candidates overall.
However, young candidates have increased by 17 percent since 2009 when just 869 of the 9 117 candidates were under 30 years old. In 1999 there were 724 candidates under 30 years of age out of a total of 7 140 candidates (10.1%).
The breakdown of age of candidates on the national lists is as follows:
- 18 – 19: 5 (0.24%)
- 20 – 29: 224 (10.7%)
- 30 – 39: 464 (22.2%)
- 40 – 49: 551 (26.37%)
- 50 – 59: 550 (26.37%)
- 60 plus: 295 (14.1%)
The IEC said the party with both the youngest and oldest candidate is the African People’s Convention which has a candidate who will be 18 years, 4 months and 13 days on Election Day and a candidate who will be 89 years, 8 months and 17 days old.
The final candidate lists are available on www.elections.org.za. – SAnews.gov.za
