Unlike many other VIPs, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille stood in a queue when she went to vote on Wednesday, instead of going straight to the front.
She arrived at St Paul’s Anglican Church, a few blocks from her home in the leafy Cape Town suburb of Rondebosch, at 8am sharp along with her husband, academic Johann Maree and their two sons.
She joined the line of about 100 people, most of whom burst into applause when they saw her.
Zille, who is also city mayor, told a large contingent of journalists that it had been a long and hard campaign and it was now ”up to the voters”.
Speaking from her place in the queue, she said the DA expected to win the Western Cape outright and to remain the official opposition nationally.
There was also a possibility that the DA would govern the province was part of a coalition.
But she said: ”I am confident that the DA will emerge as the largest party in the province.”
Asked whether the DA’s ”Stop Zuma” campaign was negative, she said: ”Jacob Zuma is what’s negative.”
He had scrapped the Scorpions and was now attacking Constitutional Court judges, among other things.
”He is a one-man Constitution-wrecking machine. What he says and what he does are two different things. He is negative, not the DA.”
Asked if she had a message for the voters, she said: ”My message is, vote to win.”
Zille was in the queue for just under half an hour before she cast her vote.
Holomisa happy to vote for himself
Meanwhile, United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa was proud of who he voted for at
Arcadia Primary School in Pretoria on Wednesday.
”I’m glad I voted for myself and my party,” he said.
”It feels good to participate and help mould our democratic process.
”We know we have had problems [in] the last 15 years, especially the last two,” he said .
”The country’s image has been tarnished. I hope the youth will go out in big numbers to vote and help to regain the lost ground nationally and internationally.
”The youth must remember they shape the country’s future which they are going to rule one day.”
Holomisa then said ”it’s very cold” before leaving the voting station.
He said he was off to his office and then the Independent Electoral Commission’s base in Pretoria. – Sapa