Elections: ‘We’re getting good at this’

Long queues could be seen snaking around voting stations across the country on Wednesday as South Africans went to the polls in the country’s third democratic election. A high turnout is expected among the 21-million South Africans registered to vote, although the result is a foregone conclusion — the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is expected to romp to victory, garnering well over 60% of the vote.

This has seen the focus turn to two provinces — the Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal.

What is at stake is whether the ANC will win KwaZulu-Natal from the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) — which currently rules the province with the help of the national official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) — and whether it will retain control in the other highly contested province of the Western Cape.

At present the ANC co-governs with the New National Party in the Western Cape, a partnership led by the latter — with its leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk holding the premiership — but the ANC is likely to hold this mantle after today’s election.

While Wednesday’s elections got underway with few major hitches, the SABC reports that defence minister Mosioua Lekota was involved in a shouting match with a personal assistant of Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the IFP leader. This incident follows a visit by Lekota to the polling station where Buthelezi is to cast his vote.

It was also reported that there was an assassination attempt on the IFP’s Ethekwini (Durban) leader, Divas Mncwanbe, whose car came under fire on Tuesday night.

Former President and Nobel Prize winner Nelson Mandela cast his vote at the Transvaal Automobile Club in Houghton, where he called on all eligible South Africans to vote.

”Every citizen must assert his or her right as a citizen and the highest manner in which to assert their right is to vote,” Mandela said.

Mandela said he felt ”elated” to be able to exercise his right as a citizen.

”I hope the entire world will abandon violence and use peaceful measures as asserting their rights as citizens.”

Earlier, President Thabo Mbeki cast his vote in Pretoria.

”The big day has come. Politicians have been doing a lot of talking. It is now time for the people to speak,” said Mbeki.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu paid tribute to South Africa’s democratic gains as he voted in the suburb of Milnerton, north of Cape Town.

”Often they say the first election after freedom is the last,” said Tutu.

”Most countries degenerate into dictatorships after their first elections. We are disproving that. We are taking it in our stride.”

”We are getting to be quite good at this. We can count our votes. There are people who can’t do that,” he said, in an apparent swipe at Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe.

Tutu, a key figure in the anti-apartheid struggle, has spoken out again human rights abuses by the government of South Africa’s northern neighbour.

Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his role in combatting apartheid, on Tuesday gave his backing to the ANC, saying the party needed a majority to make sure it would not be hamstrung when carrying out its policies.

After casting her vote in Cape Town, the leader of the newly-formed Independent Democrats, Patricia De Lille, called for the eradication of poverty to be South Africa’s number one priority.

Meanwhile, DA leader Tony Leon, accompanied by his wife Mishal, cast his vote at the Saxonwold Primary School in Johannesburg.

Buthelezi is expected to cast his vote shortly. Most of the leaders of the major parties will then have voted. – I-Net Bridge, Sapa