General Election, 29 May 2024

On 29 May 2024, South Africa held general elections for the National Assembly, National Council of Provinces and the president. In South African general elections, registered voters elect 400 members of the National Assembly (Freedom House 2024). Following the election of the National Assembly, the newly elected members of parliament vote on the president. If no candidate wins 50 per cent or more of the vote in the first round, the National Assembly votes again until a presidential nominee wins a clear majority (Reuters 2024a). 

The country’s election management body, the Electoral Commission of South Africa—also referred to as the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)—is made up of 10 commissioners and one Chief Electoral Officer (IEC n.d.). 

To reduce misinformation and disinformation during the 2024 elections, the IEC collaborated with social media giants including Google, Meta and Tik Tok and a nonprofit, Media Monitoring Africa (IEC 2024). Because South African elections rely heavily on digital infrastructure, the IEC also took advice on cyber-security from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (Laurence 2024). In January 2024, the Democratic Alliance (DA) party had faced AI-enabled misrepresentation whereby the voice of Glynnis Breytenbach MP was replicated to create a fabricated recording (Grange 2024).

Moreover, a study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) focusing on the May 2024 elections found that South African women in politics faced widespread online abuse, including misogynistic attacks targeting their appearance, intelligence, and leadership abilities. Gendered disinformation further undermined them through objectification and sexualization. While legal frameworks exist, enforcement is weak, and many women are unaware of available resources. Social media platforms also have online GBV policies, but their implementation remains inconsistent, especially beyond English-language content (ISD 2024). On election day technical issues in some polling station exacerbated delays, particular in urban areas of South Africa, leading to long queues and complaints of lacking preparation (EEM 2024).

Other instances of malpractice marked the campaign, with political party leaders prioritizing the financing of certain projects allegedly in exchange for personal gain. Specifically, a former sports, arts and culture minister was arrested on suspicion of bribery (Al Jazeera 2024b; Reuters 2024b) and subsequently resigned. 

According to South African Constitutional Law (47(1)(e)) anyone who has served a prison sentence of 12 or more months is not eligible to be a member of the National Assembly, which disqualified former president Jacob Zuma from standing (due to a 15-month sentence served for contempt of court in 2021) (de Vos 2024). In a case that appeared to undermine the IEC, its ruling on this was successfully challenged by Zuma’s team, before being reinstated on further review by the Constitutional Court just nine days before polling (Al Jazeera 2024a). 

May 2024 saw two further challenges to electoral integrity that each resulted in arrests. These involved intimidation of electoral officials and in violation of a statute that requires ballot boxes to be handled only by members of the IEC (Nyathi 2024).  

On election day, some political liaison committee representatives were dissatisfied with IEC's electoral planning due to voter management device failures and a slow voting process, which caused delays in closing some voting stations (EEM 2024). 

Gender was largely ignored by political parties during the elections. Women's political representation remains heavily reliant on voluntary quota systems (EISA 2024); as noted by the African Union’s EOM there is currently no legislative framework specifically regulating women’s representation in politics (AU 2024).  Women made up 55% (15,345,033) of eligible voters, while voters under 40 accounted for 42.4% (11,790,661). However, the candidate nominations did not reflect the diversity of the electorate, only 42% of candidates were women, and 32% were under 40. In the new Government of National Unity (GNU), women's representation in parliament dropped from 46% in 2020 to 43% in 2024, and the executive now includes 31 women out of 77 ministers, or 40%, reversing the gender parity achieved in 2019 (EISA 2024).

For the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994, the African National Congress (ANC) party did not win a clear majority. Controlling only 40 per cent of Parliament, it sought to create a broad multiparty alliance capable of electing the president (Hunter 2024). The other two leading parties in the National Assembly were the Democratic Alliance party (DA) with 21 per cent of seats, and the uMkhonto weSizwe party (M.K.) with 14 per cent. The election also marked South Africa’s lowest voter turnout since 1994, at 58.64 per cent (Al Jazeera 2024). This  was significantly lower than turnout in 2019, which 66.05 per cent (International IDEA 2024). 

AU observers noted that this year’s election was notably competitive due to multiple new political parties, but concerns were raised over social media and the spread of fake news and disinformation. Since 2019 several amendments had been made to electoral law, such as inclusion of independent candidates, a third ballot and lower requirements for new political parties. Observers also expressed trust in the IEC, but nevertheless stressed the need for greater regulations on campaigning. For example, politicians are still allowed to campaign on election day itself. Observers also found that ballot box labelling requires improvements (AU 2024).   

Mobile voting stations were used and observers described it as a success in garnering participation of voters in rural areas. The IEC also collaborated with civil society, including youth and disabled people’s organizations, on voter education and social media awareness. Civil society was also actively involved in voter registration (AU 2024).