Ann Eveleth
THIS week’s local government elections will change next to nothing in the white right-wing stronghold of St Lucia, following a successful campaign by white business owners to keep most of their black employees off the voters’ roll.
While black voters won a partial victory during a revision court hearing last week, the vast majority of blacks who wanted to vote in St Lucia were forced to vote elsewhere this week. Although nearly 200 black workers initially registered to vote in the holiday town where they live and work, all but 40 were removed from the rolls amid white claims that their ”real” homes were in outlying areas.
The revision court last week upheld the reregistration of 13 of these initial applicants, as well as the application of nine new black voters against white objections, but the odds are still against black local representation.
A supreme court challenge to the decision of the first revision court which sat last year was withdrawn when KwaZulu-Natal’s polls were delayed and the rolls reopened for four days. The Durban Legal Resources Centre (LRC) which is representing local blacks said, however, that ”by the time the rolls reopened, most blacks has given up and registered elsewhere”.
Only 33 new black voters registered during the extension, and only about 13 of these were placed on the roll by town clerk and voters’ roll officer Gerrie Swan, claimed LRC lawyer Liz Campbell.
Following last week’s hearing, the revision court supported the registration of 22 black voters, but disallowed nine on grounds that the applicants had listed other residences or had withdrawn their applications and decided to register elsewhere.
No objections were raised to any of the approximately 80 white voters who registered during the supplementary period, bringing white voter registration to about 590 compared to 62 black voters. Campbell has referred the matter to the Electoral Code of Conduct Commission (Ecco) and has called for an investigation into Swan’s allegedly ”unilateral” decision not to register the bulk of new voters and his alleged refusal to give the LRC access to the voters’ roll.
Although the revision court has no powers to act against the voters’ roll officer, it found that Swan’s refusal to register a number of black voters on the supplementary roll constituted an ”exceptional circumstance” and that Swan had ”no discretion in terms of which he can take any information into consideration in deciding whether the applicant should be registered or not”, except that information contained in their registration forms.
Swan could not be reached for comment, but has previously refused to answer questions, claiming the matter is ”sub judice”.
Campbell accused white business owners of intimidating their black employees to register in nearby Dukuduku Forest and other outlying areas.
Alleging some employers had closed down their staff quarters and moved their workers to Dukuduku, Campbell said one employer had offered his employees a one-week holiday to vote elsewhere: ”Many potential voters were afraid for their jobs and wouldn’t register because it is their employers who filed the objections to them the first time.”
Local black leaders made similar claims when the Mail & Guardian visited the town last month. Raymond Ngubane, a local bartender and leader of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, said: ”We were told that since we did not own property here we could not vote. They said St Lucia would never be controlled by blacks.” It appears they were right.