In a country where the government has frequently gone on record in support of open source software and open standards, it is surprising that a state-affiliated body like the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) should ignore such a mandate. But that`s exactly what the IEC did during and after the recent local government elections.

The organisation`s Web site was meant to be the definitive source of the results of voting and for many, indeed, most voters, this was the case. Unfortunately, those who had followed government`s lead and embraced open source technology were left out in the cold because the IEC site fails the open standards test in that it does not work properly with the open standards compliant Mozilla Firefox Web browser.

Nhlanhla Mabaso, manager of the open source centre of the CSIR`s Meraka Institute, views this in a serious light. In an e-mail to IEC CIO Libisi Maphanga, Mabaso noted that the Web site “violates the minimum interoperability standards as well as W3C standards”.