The ruling by the Constitutional Court (without reasons published so far) that the local elections must go ahead may cause consternation in some quarters. Critics of the decision will ask how the election can go ahead when an investigation by former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke has found such a poll would not be free and fair. While it is a valid question, in fact this may turn out to be the best possible option for the country, and for our future.

The judges on Constitution Hill have now ensured that the Constitution has not been broken by the pandemic, and no precedent of postponing an election has been set. More importantly, while political parties and lawyers have all been heard, voters have not had the chance to speak. Now they will be able to have their say, and exercise their democratic right.

But major disputes remain. The IEC has to decide whether to reopen the registration of candidates, and it will come under intense pressure from the ANC to do so, and equally intense pressure from opposition parties to refuse to buckle under that pressure. The local elections are going to be intense, but the campaign will be mercifully short; the final result may be a sort of catharsis.

Over a year ago it was already clear that the question of whether or not the local elections could go ahead would be one of the hardest governance decisions for our society during the pandemic.

Since that point the question has been posed either in epidemiological terms, or in terms of whether our political parties would be able to exercise their rights. This has seen the question posed generally as “should the election go ahead?”.

But posing the question as, “do people want to vote?” may well elicit a different answer. It is a question that will now be answered, as voters will be able to decide for themselves.

This is crucial. There is evidence from many other countries of how people in power have tried to abuse the pandemic, to stifle democracy or at least weaken rights and institutions. This has not happened here. The court has ensured that the constitutional imperative that elections must happen within five years and three months of the last local poll has been upheld.

There will be no prospect of a leader in the future using a pandemic or any other disaster to postpone, delay and ultimately cancel elections.

The importance of this cannot be overstated; we are still a relatively young democracy which has not yet had a democratic change of government. Now our democracy may well emerge from the pandemic enhanced, rather than weakened.

Then there is the question of the pandemic, and whether it is too dangerous to hold the polls now.

To a point, that is up to voters. But for the moment it appears that the third wave of the virus is over in most places. Of course, the future cannot be accurately predicted, but it seems unlikely that there will be a fourth wave by the time of the election. And it would be harder to make a prediction of what will happen with the virus by February next year.

While there are many possible bad outcomes to this entire situation, one of the worst would have been a delay until February, and then for a fourth wave to hit at that time. This would have made voting more dangerous, and raised the temptation to postpone the polls again.

That will not happen now.

However, there is still another outcome, which while difficult would not be permanently negative for the country.

It is possible that the polls go ahead in October, but a party which does badly claims that they were not “free and fair”. They will use the Moseneke report to make that claim.

Unfortunately, if the ANC is not able to register its candidates it has the strongest possible political incentive to be one of those parties. This would see the governing party in a legal dispute with the Electoral Commission in the courts.

This could even result in the elections being seen as not free and fair. While that would be a negative outcome, it could be only a temporary problem. Because they would then be held again, hopefully outside of the pandemic (or at least when many more people have been protected by the vaccine).

The next few weeks are likely to be full of turmoil ahead of the elections, however.

The ANC is likely to demand that the IEC reopen the candidate registration process. As Professor Pierre de Vos argues, it is not certain that they have a strong legal case on which to rely to do this.

The DA and other opposition parties will fight hard to keep the registration process closed.

At stake is control of major metros like Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, and many councils in KwaZulu-Natal. The ANC appears to have failed to register enough candidates in those municipalities to govern them, which means they are sitting ducks for opposition parties.

This means that the battles between the IEC and the opposition parties on one side and the ANC on the other will be fierce and intense.

All of this in the context of what President Cyril Ramaphosa has himself defined as “a palpable feeling of anger towards and disillusionment with this government, which we must not underestimate”. He was speaking during his political report to the ANC national executive committee over the weekend.

This means that political tensions both in our politics generally, and within the ANC are likely to be at a very high level for the next few weeks.

It could give the impression that the battle is between the ANC and “everyone else”, in a way we have not seen since Jacob Zuma was president.

While all of this could have important consequences, most of them will be limited to the shorter term. In the longer term, it is the health of our elections that will matter. Without regular elections, held according to the Constitution, we cannot claim to be a democracy. This prospect will now be avoided.

Also, the pandemic and the lockdown have seen huge tensions building in our society. There is some evidence that the violence in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in August was partially the result of those tensions. Voting can be cathartic. It’s good to speak, and it’s good to be heard.

The elections may well reduce some of those tensions. And while it could be argued that campaigning by political parties can raise the temperature, the period of campaigning will be relatively short, and limited by the Covid-19 restrictions.

In the meantime, predictions will be made, statements issued. The parties are going to argue with each other. The ANC will argue with itself.

But voters will vote. And that is the most important thing. DM