The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) in the Western Cape is planning to conduct Wednesday’s municipal election as if there will be no power available in the province.
”We are planning for no electricity. That is the safest,” provincial electoral officer Courtney Sampson told a media briefing in Bellville on Tuesday afternoon.
Cape Town and other towns in the province have been suffering from ”rolling” power outages since early on Tuesday morning, when the Koeberg nuclear power station was again shut down due to technical problems.
Sampson said indications from state electricity utility Eskom and the regional electricity distributor, RED One, were that there would indeed be power outages in the Western Cape on Wednesday.
He appealed to voters to turn out early.
”We are asking voters to go to the polls as early as possible. We want to avoid a situation where too many voters arrive half an hour before the voting station closes [at 7pm].”
Sampson said the voting process itself did not require electricity.
However, there were concerns for the evening when the light started to fade and the counting process began.
”We are comfortable we will have lights and candles,” he said.
The electricity authorities had provided a schedule of when the power would be off and in which areas, but he was unable to provide a copy to the media.
Eskom had undertaken to supply generators to municipalities in the Western Cape should the need arise on Wednesday evening.
Only the George municipality had taken up the offer so far, Sampson said.
The South African Press Association journalist covering the briefing at the IEC’s offices was led up five flights of stairs in total darkness. Outside in Voortrekker Road, police officers were on point duty where traffic lights were not working, directing the heavy afternoon traffic.
Mbeki predicts good turnout
President Thabo Mbeki is confident of a big voter turnout on Wednesday and expects the African National Congress to do well.
”I say I expect we will get a good turnout”, Mbeki told journalists at the ANC’s Luthuli House headquarters in downtown Johannesburg after a series of door-to-door campaigns.
”The message I got from voters is that there is a great deal of enthusiasm to partake in tomorrow’s election. There is now a better understanding of the importance of local government.
”Previously there was a large voter turnout in national and provincial elections and a significantly smaller turnout for local government elections.
”My sense is there is somewhat of a turnaround in mood. There is a conviction amongst people that their problems can be addressed,” Mbeki said.
Many potential voters had complained to him about a variety of issues during his campaigning.
However, he felt they were not complaining in the knowledge that nothing would be done, but criticising the ANC where they felt something had to be done, with the expectation that the party would do so.
Mbeki said voters with this attitude would not be disappointed.
”This is not an idle promise, it’s an undertaking,” he said.
Asked repeatedly after the situation in Khutsong, Mbeki said he would not have told the community there — who oppose incorporation into the North West province — anything different from what national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota had tried to tell them — that Parliament had decided to transfer Khutsong from Gauteng and that the matter ended there.
Asked if Lekota had performed adequately — he had to be escorted out of the area twice after angry residents turned on him — Mbeki said: ”I’m sure he handled it quite well.”
Any criticism he might have would be raised in the party’s National Executive Committee, not through the media, he added.
Mbeki said the issues repeatedly raised with him by voters were poverty, unemployment, health and schooling.
Questioned whether HIV/Aids was raised, Mbeki asked party spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama if he remembered anyone raising the issue and then said the issue had not come up — even once.
Queried whether he thought the party would lose control of the Cape Town metropole, Mbeki said he was sure the city would stay ANC-controlled.
”I have no fear about the outcome of the election in Cape Town. The mood there among coloured and black voters is no different from anywhere else in the country,” he said.
He criticised the Democratic Alliance for a poster there that urged voters to ”take your city back”.
He said the use of such a slogan was ”not correct, especially in Cape Town”, considering the city’s serious racial tensions.
”It is very unfortunate. It encourages a type of thinking that is very unhealthy,” Mbeki said, adding that he would like to know whom the city belonged to. A better slogan might have been ”give Cape Town back to the DA,” he opined.
Quizzed on whether convicted fraudster Ruth Bengu deserved to be at the top of the ANC’s Ugu municipal candidate’s list, Mbeki said her R45 000 fine did not preclude her standing for public office.
He added that ANC branches in the area were insistent she represent them.
Mbeki said Bengu had pleaded guilty, had been punished and had apologised. For that reason there was no reason for the party to impose additional punishment on her.
Leon: ‘We can win’
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon painted a rosy picture on Tuesday of his party’s prospects in Wednesday’s municipal election.
”In the past 36 hours, I have visited over a dozen towns in the Western Cape to rally DA supporters and encourage people to unite behind the DA.
”And I have returned to Cape Town feeling excited by the DA’s prospects throughout this great province. We can win!” he told journalists at Cape Town airport.
”Throughout my journey, I have seen how DA municipalities are succeeding, and ANC municipalities are failing.”
What was true in the Western Cape was true across South Africa.
Leon said in the past several weeks he had crossed South Africa from place to place, and visited every one of the nine provinces, every major metropolitan area, and dozens of small towns and rural districts.
”I have visited schools and hospitals, taxi ranks and factories, temples and churches. And everywhere, I have felt the people’s desire for change.
”All across South Africa, the ANC is getting weaker. And all across South Africa, the DA is getting stronger.
”We are stronger in the leafy suburbs. We are stronger in the sprawling townships. And we are stronger in the squatter camps, among the poorest of the poor,” he said.
The voters of South Africa had a clear choice.
”The ANC offers you more of the same. The ANC offers you the same promises it has broken before.
”The ANC offers you a track record of failed service delivery, corruption and mismanagement across the nation. The ANC offers you greedy councillors, worn-out policies and mystery mayors whose names are unknown to the people.
”The DA offers you a radical new approach to local government. The DA offers you tough action against corruption. The DA offers you new policies that will improve services, create jobs and reduce crime.
”The DA offers you a track record of successful delivery to all of the people. The DA offers you the best councillors and mayoral candidates we have ever presented in our history,” Leon said. – Sapa