MPUMALANGA premier Mathews Phosa made a last-minute bid to prevent liquor sales on election day but pubs, taverns, bottle stores and restaurants ignored his appeal. Provincial liquor board chairman Jabulani Matsane admitted that the Liquor Act does not prevent booze sales on election days. He said Phosa’s appeal was based on “civic responsibility”. And at […]
MICHAEL METELITS, Johannesburg | Wednesday 12.10pm. THE Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) claims that several employers, some large-scale, are requiring employees to work on Wednesday, election day. The party alleges that businesses are “conniving with certain political parties to deny workers the right to vote so that these parties benefit from the outcome […]
AN estimated 60% of registered voters in Mpumalanga had cast their ballots by 6pm, with only a couple of polling stations in the former KwaNdebele reporting possible delays. Some polling stations in Daggakraal and Burgersfort had already reported over 95% voter turnout. IEC provincial electoral officer, Steve Ngwenya, told journalists at a press briefing that […]
THE Independent Electoral Commission officials expect first results of the one-day election soon after midnight Wednesday — with a conclusive outcome possibly known by midday on Thursday. There are no exit polls or computer projections. Final opinion polls have forecast a majority of between 59% and 69% for the ANC, clearing the way for Deputy […]
PAN Africanist Congress firebrand, Patricia de Lille, cast her vote in Pinelands, Cape Town, early this afternoon. De Lille arrived in a wheelchair after weeks in hospital following a car crash while she was on the election trail. Despite probably qualifying for a special vote, De Lille, unlike many other high profile political leaders, refused […]
TUESDAY, 2.30PM: THE International Monetary Fund on Monday approved a $175-million, 13-month stand-by credit to Zimbabwe, which is destined to assist the government in funding its 1998 economic reform programme. Some $52-million of the loan will be made immediately available to the government, while the remainder will be paid at quarterly intervals, subject to the […]
ABOUT 3000 people are waiting in voting queues filling the park surrounding Yeoville’s Community Centre where Gauteng’s second largest polling station is based. Voters are waiting on average of four and a half hours to get to the polls. The IEC says the pace is picking up, with voters going into the two voting halls […]
POLLING stations in the Highveld region of Mpumalanga have requested extended voting hours as snags and staff shortages are preventing them from processing more than 100 voters per hour. IEC media spokesman Leon Mbangwa said on Wednesday afternoon that polling stations in the rural Moutse and Mbibane areas of the former KwaNdebele had requested that […]
A SENIOR Mozambican police officer has been sentenced to three months imprisonment for illegally detaining a journalist, state radio reported on Tuesday. Severino Charles, police commander of Chiure district in the northern Cabo Delgado province, was Tuesday found guilty of illegally detaining journalist Fernando Quinova of the state-owned Mass Communications Institute in October last year. […]
CHRISTIAN Solidarity International, a non-governmental organisation involved in a controversy over Sudan’s slave trade, said on Wednesday it had freed almost 1400 slaves in May. CSI has liberated a total of 9112 Sudanese slaves since the start of its campaign in 1995. The Zurich-based NGO frees the slaves by buying them. The method has been […]