DA’s drive to secure extra parliamentary seats from South Africans overseas – Ludré Stevens
The 2024 national and provincial elections are seen as a realistic opportunity for opposition parties to wrest power away from the ruling ANC. With every single vote making a difference, the DA is gearing up to woo overseas voters who have in the past overwhelmingly voted for the party. The DA Abroad's Global Chair, Ludré Stevens, told BizNews that voting overseas is much easier for this election, as the IEC has agreed to allow online registration for overseas voters. Stevens said this is a huge game changer and the party is also pushing for more voting stations in locations where South Africans are based, rather than just capital cities, and for the use of only one form of identification. He said the DA has started a process of mobilising South Africans abroad as this is the election where a single seat can make a difference. – Linda van Tilburg
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Relevant timestamps from the interview
- 00:00 – Introductions
- 00:28 – Ludré Stevens discusses the DA's drive to secure overseas voting for the 2024 national election
- 01:00 – Stevens gives the ins and outs of overseas voting
- 04:50 – On the number of overseas voters the DA aims to secure
- 06:56 – On the need to get votes away from the ANC
- 10:57 – On difficulties with securing passports for overseas voters
- 12:07 – On the importance of the 2024 national election
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Excerpts from the interview
Registering online, a huge game changer for South Africans overseas
There are two steps for overseas registration. The first one is to get on the voter's roll. The second one is to fill in a VEC10 form, which is a request for a special vote. Both of these are online now. So, if you're already on the voter's roll, if you've voted before in South Africa or registered for it in South Africa, you're already on the voter's roll and you don't need to register. The only thing you have to do is fill in the online VEC 10 form to say which voting station you want to vote in overseas.
Where are the voting stations? So, previously it's always been in the capital cities of the country that you live in. If you are in the UK, it could be London, in Australia, it would be Canberra. But the DA is fighting a battle to get more voting stations around the world where South Africans are actually based. Instead of Canberra where hardly anyone lives to have voting stations in Perth and for example in the UK, also to have voting stations in Edinburgh and Belfast. So, for now, our big request to voters is to make sure you register next month online and then secondly, fill in your VEC10 form because based on where those VC10 forms are signed on, at those locations, we will say we want voting stations in these other cities around the world.
Two forms of ID are still needed
At the moment, it's still the same as previously, which is to have both a passport and a South passport and an ID. However, we are again working with our colleagues back home on the IEC Liaison Committee to request that you only have to have one South African government-issued I.D. document. Why do you have to have two documents? It makes no sense. We think that previously this was the case because some people may have lost their dual nationality ID or nationality. But, now we've won that court case which reinstates citizenship. So, there's no reason why you have to have two forms of ID if both of these are issued by the South African government. So, we are working with our colleagues back in SA to get approval for only one form of ID, either an I.D. book or a South African passport.
Aiming to get two extra MPs from overseas voters
So basically, usually what happens is to get an MP elected into Parliament, it's getting between 50 and 55,000 votes. We, as the DA, are aiming to get two MPs elected to Parliament with DA votes overseas. So, we want between 100,00 and 110,000 votes overseas. Now, this is significantly higher than previous elections, but fundamentally it is because of two reasons that we think this is doable. The first one is, overseas registration will be available online now before it was only in-person at this embassy. So it's a huge game changer. But number two, this is a critical election and I know people always say that about every single election. But can you imagine if the ANC or EFF comes into power, how destructive that's going to be for the next five years? This could potentially be our last election before we get completely plunged into darkness with this load-shedding. So, even if you live overseas for a short term or medium term or long term, this election is going to be a game changer and we call upon everybody who can vote, any South African citizen to cast your vote, because if we don't get this election done or at least give people a choice, it is going to be downhill from here.
One seat can make a difference in the 2024 elections
This election coming up is fundamental in the sense that we have for the first time in these elections, we have political fluidity. By that I mean for the last two decades we have only had the ANC national government guaranteed to come in. Before that, we had decades of National Party government. With our local elections two years ago, where for the first time we got exposed to coalition politics. It is the first time that there was fluidity and where every single vote meant that one seat, one council could change that government. I think we're going to be in the same position for the 2024 election, where it could be that one or two or three seats that determine who forms a majority coalition government. One seat can mean instability or stability, especially if there are one or two partners who are known to be flip-flopping left, right and centre. So what is so exciting about this, this fluidity, every single vote counts. People who are sick and tired of load-shedding and corruption and no service delivery, this is their chance to make a real difference and that's why we're making this big call on people overseas. We can register online to vote, we are asking for more voting stations. One seat makes a difference in coalitions, and it's fundamental that we all just make the effort and go and vote which is so exciting.
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