Justin Arenstein
WHEN election authorities in Mpumalanga announced that they had lost the trucks transporting ballot papers to more than 50 polling stations in the former KwaNdebele, it sounded like one of the more amusing episodes of the local elections.
But when the ballot papers had still not arrived 12 hours after polls were supposed to open and the army sent out spotter planes to find the missing ballots, heads began to roll.
In a controversial move, Mpuma-langa premier Mathews Phosa launched his own snap investigation into the delays at midday on Wednesday and by 3pm was accusing the senior election co-ordinators in the former homeland of deliberately sabotaging the elections.
“The explanations (for the delays) were pathetic and disgusting and smacked of massive sabotage. Their whole operation was an abortion and the organisers are really deep in the soup,” charged Phosa.
“Although people like Paul Broodryk, who is a very bitter man with an agenda, were supposedly in control of the situation, they still cannot give us an intelligent explanation for the situation.”
Broodryk, co-chairman of the Regional Services Council which ran the elections in the area, consistently refused to deny Phosa’s charges.
“I have immense respect for Phosa and accept that my head is on the block. As political head, I accept collective responsibility for the problems,” he said.
Admitting that he was not solely responsible for the elections in KwaNdebele, Broodryk added that he found it “strange” that he had been singled out.”
The ballot papers were finally delivered between 1pm and 4.30pm, forcing election officials to keep some polling stations open until 6am on Thursday to enable voters to cast their ballots.
Despite the delays, which forced some voters to queue for as long as 24 hours, no violence or other serious incidents were reported in Mpumalanga.
Anticipated tension between the province’s large farming community and their labour tenants did not materialise, with many farmers actually ferrying their tenants to rural polls on the back of trucks. The overwhelming response to elections by these rural voters, who had been written off as uninterested and too politically naive to really care about local government, added to the unexpectedly huge turnouts at the polls.
Independent and ratepayer candidates dominated the small-town councils which were the first out with their results on Thursday morning, with a surprising lack of support for mainstream parties such as the National Party and Freedom Front. The ANC was the only established party to do consistently well in the ward candidate seats.
Moreover, many of the supposed independent candidates were either affiliated to the ANC or had already indicated that they were interested in coalitions with the party, said Phosa, who is the ANC’s provincial chairperson. “The ANC was very vocal about saying that people should vote for a party and not for individuals — and our overwhelming victory in the proportional representation stakes proves our success,” he said.
“But we deliberately disguised the majority of our ward candidates as independents — you’ve got to make your competitors run in different directions.”
Commenting on the ANC’s overwhelming victory in Ermelo, one of the province’s two conservative heartlands, Phosa said it and similar victories over traditionally right-wing councils were the most important aspect of the elections.
“We expected to win in the former homelands and urban centres, but here in these so-called verkrampte places we now have a chance to show people who have never gotten close to us that we are not any worse than previous politicians they’ve had and in fact may be somewhat better,” he explained.