Inmate group to boycott poll
2004-02-02 12:19
Johannesburg - The SA Prisoners' Organisation for Human Rights (SAPOHR) has called on prisoners, former prisoners and their families to boycott the forthcoming elections to show solidarity with prisoners who will not be allowed to vote.
According to the Electoral Laws Amendment Act, gazetted on November 6, 2003, only prisoners awaiting trial and prisoners given the option of paying a fine will be allowed to vote.
SAPOHR said on Monday it had written letters to the government and the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) voicing their dissatisfaction regarding the "unconstitutional sidelining" of prisoners from the election.
"Our attempts have proved futile. The decision to call on all prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their next of kin to boycott the elections to show solidarity with hundreds of thousands denied their constitutional rights to vote, therefore comes as our last resort," SAPOHR's KwaZulu-Natal chair Derrick Mdluli said in a statement.
"We find it downright callous for the ANC government, which in 1994 was a sole campaigner, within the political fraternity, for the rights of prisoners to vote, to now decide unilaterally and with total disregard for the Constitution, rated amongst the best in the world, that some South Africans who voted in 1994 and 1999 will not vote in 2004.
"This is in conflict with government's policy of rehabilitation and re-integration of offenders. Only a naive person can think that one can be rehabilitated and reintegrated into a society he/she had no influence to help shape."
The act, steered through Parliament by the Home Affairs committee was finally signed into power by President Thabo Mbeki on November 2, 2003.
It also controversially excludes many South Africans abroad at the time of the election from voting, prompting an outcry and threats of litigation from opposition parties.
Mdluli called on the IEC to make public the amount of resources needed to enable all prisoners to vote and said it would assist with the necessary fund-raising.
The IEC could not comment immediately.
President Thabo Mbeki is expected to announce the election date on February 11.
- SAPA