Politicians joined ordinary South Africans casting their votes as the local government elections got under way on Wednesday.
It was a short walk for KwaZulu-Natal’s African National Congress chairperson Zweli Mkhize, who arrived at the polling station Willowfontein near Pietermaritzburg at 7.30am.
Mkhize, who is also KwaZulu-Natal premier, cast his vote at the Thandokuhle daycare centre, about 400 metres from his home.
He was accompanied by party supporters who sang and chanted party slogans.
“This promises to be a peaceful election and we hope that everyone will behave themselves,” Mkhize said after voting.
Most non-racial party
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said Wednesday’s municipal elections were a turning point for South Africa as she cast her ballot at St Paul’s Anglican Church in Rondebosch, Cape Town.
“People are understanding that voting for a party means voting for what they are going to do for you for the next five years.”
Zille said the DA was the only party that could undo the legacy of apartheid by delivering services to all, and accused the ANC of taking South Africa “back to division”.
She scoffed at claims by the ANC mayoral candidate for Cape Town, Tony Ehrenreich, that his campaign had won coloured voters for the ruling party.
“We don’t go into divisive racial categories,” Zille said. “We are the most non-racial party.”
She appealed to voters to come out en masse to give the DA another five years in control of the Western Cape.
After voting, Zille was to leave by private plane for Port Elizabeth and then Johannesburg to encourage voters to come to the polls.
She has claimed that the DA is close to winning Port Elizabeth.
Voting at Fourways a ‘nightmare’
The Fourways High School voting station was “totally disorganised” and opened 30 minutes late, a voter said.
“There was no organisation at all and it took over two-and-a-half hours for me to cast my vote,” said Christine Jones.
The school gates opened at 7am to let people in, but the voting station door opened at 7.30am.
She said there were two queues, one for the elderly, disabled and pregnant women, and the other for ordinary citizens.
Hundreds of people snaked through the school grounds and onto the road.
“The electoral officers were only processing the people in the disability line and totally forgot about us,” said Jones.
To add to the problem, the station had only one hand-held device to issue stickers that were placed on identity documents after voting.
An hour into voting it had run out of paper.
“It took really long for them to go through each person with one device.
“Towards 9am, they decided to call the regional centre to have another device brought in.”
She said voters were angry that they were not being processed fast enough.
The station had also experienced problems with the names of registered voters on the list.
Some of the names did not corresponding with those on identity documents.
“It was a nightmare. I only left the station at 9am,” said Jones.
“On the upside, they [electoral officers] were very polite,” she said. – Sapa
For exclusively M&G articles and multimedia on the local government elections 2011 click here:
