Who was watching? ICASA deployed election monitors at the eleventh hour

The broadcasting regulator only put its election monitoring officers to work on 2 November, two days before South Africans voted in the local government elections.

Party election broadcasts had been on air since 4 October, nearly a month earlier.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) confirmed the date in a written response to Africa Daily.

"A total of 36 Election Monitoring Officers have been appointed and commenced their duties on 02 November 2026. The officers are responsible for monitoring election-related coverage by participating broadcasting licensees across the provinces.

"Prior to their deployment, election broadcasts were monitored through the Authority's existing monitoring arrangements," ICASA said.

ICASA did not explain what those existing arrangements were. It also did not say whether the 36 officers cover all nine provinces.

The monitoring only looks back at what has already been aired.

"The monitoring exercise is retrospective/historic in nature and entails reviewing broadcast content aired by participating broadcasting licensees during the election period.

"Consequently, the Authority is not yet in a position to confirm the final number of broadcasters that carried PEBs despite their commitments earlier to the Authority, as this information will only be established upon completion of the monitoring exercise," ICASA said.

Asked whether any broadcaster had been found in breach of the municipal election regulations, ICASA answered: "No."

It also did not say how many election-related complaints it had received.

Instead, it said none had been referred to its Complaints and Compliance Committee (CCC).

"To date, the Authority has not referred any election-related complaints to the Complaints and Compliance Committee (CCC). The only complaint relating to the current election period that the CCC has dealt with was lodged directly with the Committee by the DA. Accordingly, the Authority has not referred any complaints to the CCC for adjudication during this period," it said.

ICASA did not say whether the CCC met its agreed timelines in dealing with the DA complaint. Those timelines are 60 hours to hear a complaint, 36 hours to rule and 24 hours for Council to decide.

On 2 October, ICASA briefed the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies on its readiness for the elections.

ICASA chairperson Mothibi Ramusi told MPs the electoral monitoring officers would be appointed around 15 October. He also said ICASA did not have technical tools to deal with election misinformation.

At the same meeting, ICASA councillor Ntombiza Sithole said more than 200 broadcasters had attended ICASA's workshops, but only 58 were participating in carrying party election broadcasts. She said members of the CCC are not full-time.

Africa Daily also asked ICASA what it had done about election misinformation since the briefing, and whether it had requested funding for detection tools.

ICASA did not answer the question.

It said monitoring would continue after the elections.

"The Authority's monitoring activities will continue beyond 04 November 2026, as the exercise involves the retrospective monitoring and analysis of content broadcast by licensed broadcasters during the election period.

"The monitoring is not limited to PAs and PEBs, but also includes news, current affairs and other election-related content aired by broadcasting licensees," it said.

It gave no date for its post-election report.

"The post-election report will be finalised following the conclusion of the monitoring exercise. The publication thereof will be done in due course from finalisation or completion of monitoring and analysis and internal approval processes have been completed," ICASA said.