The Electoral Commission has published the final list of candidates for the May 7 national and provincial elections and has provided candidates with certificates confirming their candidacy.<\/p>\n
The final lists show a total of 8 651 candidates who are standing for election on the regional, national and provincial lists of 45 political parties.<\/p>
This is slightly fewer than the 9 117 candidates who appeared on the final lists for the 2009 election.<\/p>\n
There are 2 089 candidates on national lists, 2 165 candidates on regional lists and 4 397 candidates on provincial lists contesting for 400 National Assembly and 430 provincial legislature seats respectively – giving candidates an overall statistical one in 10 chance of election.<\/p>
Men continue to make up the bulk of candidates with 59.8 per cent of the total candidates compared to 40.2 per cent women.<\/p>\n
This is despite the fact that women registered voters outnumber men 55.9 per cent to 45.1 per cent.<\/p>\n
However, gender representation continues to show steady improvement over the years: 1999 (26.76 per cent), 2004 (30.65 per cent) and 2009 (38.5 per cent).<\/p>\n
Candidate lists for the Western Cape provincial elections show the greatest gender equity with 43 per cent women – and the Northern Cape provincial lists are the lowest with 37 per cent women.<\/p>\n
The parties with the highest percentage of female candidates are:<\/p>\n
With regards to age, candidates over 40 years old comprise 64.86 per cent of the total – with candidates under 30 years old comprising just 11.8 per cent (1 020) of candidates overall.<\/p>\n
However, young candidates have increased by 17 per cent since 2009 when just 869 of the 9 117 candidates were under 30 years old.<\/p>\n
In 1999 there were 724 candidates under 30 years old out of a total of 7 140 candidates (10.1 per cent).<\/p>\n
The breakdown of age of candidates on the national lists is as follows:<\/p>\n
The honours for fielding both the youngest and oldest candidate go to the same party – the African People’s Convention which has a candidate who will be 18 years, four months and 13 days on election day and a candidate who will be 89 years, eight months and 17 days old.<\/p>\n
The final candidate lists are available on www.elections.org.za.<\/p>\n