WALLIS AJ Constitution protects not only the act of voting and the outcome of elections, but also the right to participate in elections as a candidate and to seek public office. [35] In the case of municipal elections, this right is not dependent upon membership of, and support by, a political party. It is equally available to all citizens who wish to make themselves available for election for whatever reason. The applicants may not have had the support of the big electoral battalions,27 but they were entitled to stand for election and to be treated in the same manner and have exhibited towards them the same concern for the election being free and fair, as the large political parties that dominate the political landscape in this, as in other, countries. [36] The statutes that are relevant to the present case are: the Commission Act, the Electoral Act and the Municipal Electoral Act. The Commission Act established both the Electoral Commission and the Electoral Court and is central to the jurisdiction, powers and functions of the latter. The Electoral Act deals with the registration of voters and the preparation of the national voters’ roll. As its name implies the Municipal Electoral Act deals with the conduct of elections in the municipal sphere. Their provisions bear upon different issues and it is most appropriate to deal with them as they become relevant to the issues identified above. At the outset, however, it is appropriate to recognise that the purpose of all these statutes is to provide the statutory framework required by section 190(2) of the Constitution for the operations of the IEC. It follows that they provide an indication of what needs to be done to ensure that elections are free and fair and that material non-compliance with their requirements will support a contention that an election was not conducted in a free and fair manner. 27 The Comte de Bussy-Rabutin (1618-1693) and Marshall Henri Turenne (1611-1675) are both credited with the remark that “God is usually (or always) on the side of the big battalions”. See Cohen and Cohen The New Penguin Dictionary of Quotations (Viking, London 1992) at 433. The usual attribution is to Voltaire who wrote: “Dieu n’est pas pour les gros batallions, mais pour ceux qui tirent le mieux”, which is translated in Knowles Oxford Dictionary of Quotations 6 ed (OUP, Oxford 2004) at 816 as “God is on the side not of the heavy battalions, but on the side of the best shots.” 21