OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday 8.00pm
ONLY 770 votes were cast abroad on Wednesday, preliminary figures released by the Independent Electoral Commission on Thursday reveal.
Chief electoral officer Mandla Mchunu said total is a preliminary one as not all figures have reached the IEC yet, and exclude diplomats.
Mchunu said he is not overly concerned about the low turnout, saying: “We have never expected an overwhelming response.”
He conceded that the figure might have been higher if citizens travelling abroad had known earlier that they would be able to vote if they had registered.
The highest number of foreign special votes so far were cast in Gaborone, Botswana (194), followed by Mbabane, Swaziland (138).
At at least six embassies, no special votes were cast, including those in Spain, Angola, and Germany.
Mchunu’s deputy, Norman du Plessis, said the hijacking of an IEC vehicle that carried a load of ballot papers on Wednesday was not a threat to the integrity of the election.
The papers were recovered hours later in Soweto near Johannesburg.
Du Plessis said ballot papers needed to have a special stamp on the reverse side before they were valid. Electoral officers would attach the stamp to the back of each ballot paper handed to voters on election day.
Announcing the rules to govern the election day, Mchunu said political parties will be allowed to continue campaigning and to hold public meetings until midnight on June 1.
Election advertisements on radio and television will be prohibited from midnight on May 31 in terms of Independent Broadcasting Authority Regulations.
No political activities would be allowed on June 2.”But distributing pamphlets or using a loudhailer to encourage people to vote on June 2 will be in order,” Mchunu said.