VILLAGERS in Mpumalanga’s rural hinterland have refused to register for the coming elections and have instead accused the Independent Electoral Commission of paving the way for the Anti-Christ. People in villages such as Daggakraal chased IEC registration officers out of their villages last week, insisting the campaign to issue bar-coded ID books smacks of biblical prophecies predicting the end of the world. “Villagers are terrified of bar-coded IDs because of the belief that the Anti-Christ will force people to have numbers tattooed on their foreheads,” said provincial IEC spokesman Leon Mbangwa. “It’s all part of some strange form of rural millennium fever and clearly illustrates the kind of obstacles we have to fight just to get people registered.” Some rural residents also insist election officials are collecting names and addresses to assist debt collectors.