What is free and fair?

2024 has been the ultimate election year. Just Us Under A Tree rejoins the Africa Is a Country Podcast to reflect on South Africa’s May poll and what it reveals about contemporary democratic politics.

Election day in Ekhuruleni, May, 2019. Image credit Madelene Cronjé for New Frame.

In an unprecedented election year, more voters than ever in recorded history will have headed to the polls by the end of 2024—in at least 64 countries, with over half of the world’s population involved. In the last six months alone, pivotal elections have occurred in India, South Africa, Mexico, the UK, France, and the European Parliament. In two weeks, the US heads to the polls for a historic presidential election.

On this episode of Just Us Under A Tree, Tanveer Jeewa and Dan Mafora host Civil and Political Rights expert Mudzuli Rakhivhane to unpack the recent threats to challenge the outcome of the May 29 national elections in South Africa. What does it mean to have free and fair elections? Dan and Mudzuli, who were on the ground on election day, share their observations of various irregularities, as the three discuss whether they were indeed “so egregious as to vitiate the entire elections,” as has been alleged on many occasions. Tanveer is a constitutional law and property law lecturer, and Dan is a lawyer in Cape Town and the author of Capture in the Court (Tafelberg, 2023).

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