<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Initial results from South Africa’s national election released early on Thursday morning indicated that the African National Congress (ANC) was heading for an unsurprising victory of near two-thirds of the vote, with 63,77%. Working off a low base of votes counted at 16%, the official opposition Democratic Alliance, with 19,75%, appears to be faring far more strongly than in the 1999 national election.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Slightly more than 45% of registered voters in the Western Cape had cast their vote by 2.30pm on Wednesday. An Independent Electoral Commission officer said there had been numerous complaints from political parties contesting the elections, and long queues had formed in areas such as Guguletu and Langa.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>South Africa’s third democratic election was running smoothly late on Wednesday afternoon at the almost 17 000 voting stations around the country, despite long queues and some complaints from parties in the Western Cape, a bomb scare in Gauteng and allegations of fraud in KwaZulu-Natal. Read it all in our continually updated election event rundown.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34154">Diepsloot, Alex residents make their mark</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34151">Western Cape voters out in force</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34145">PAC laughs off Mbeki’s comments</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34148">ANC activists ‘caught red-handed'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34135">Queue talk: What voters are saying</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>The elation that marked the 1994 elections was mostly absent on Johannesburg’s West Rand on Wednesday, 10 years later. Voting got off to a punctual start and queues, although long, did not resemble the kilometres of people waiting to cast their ballots in the first election. Several people in the queues commented on the elections.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Although long queues were reported across the country on Wednesday morning, South Africa’s third general elections got off to a smooth start, with no major logistical problems reported, says Independent Electoral Commission chairperson Dr Brigalia Bam.
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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. Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu cast his ballot in Milnerton near Cape Town and said: ”Most countries degenerate into dictatorships after their first elections. We are disproving that. We are taking it in our stride”.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Tensions between the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance flared on Wednesday morning, with accusations that the official opposition workers had placed DA stamps and stickers in a number of identity books.
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South Africa’s ruling African National Congress is poised for a landslide victory in elections on Wednesday which could extend the party’s control over all nine of the country’s provinces. President Thabo Mbeki cast his vote at the Colbyn polling station in Pretoria at 7.05am.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille has emerged as the favourite opposition politician in South Africa, according to a Markinor survey. The survey also showed the ANC has the backing of 72,3% of registered voters.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk promised jobs, more police officers, teachers, the rapid roll-out of anti-retrovirals and the rights of parents in school governing bodies while touting family values at a rally at Eastridge, Mitchells Plain, on Monday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
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The Democratic Alliance has produced a pack of playing cards that highlights the candidates on the African National Congress election lists who have ”betrayed their office as public representatives”.
Special Report: Elections 2004
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Tony Leon’s comments on the Western Cape during a Democratic Alliance rally on Thursday were ”utter rubbish”, the New National Party said on Friday. Speaking at the DA’s final Western Cape election rally, Leon said that since the ANC-NNP alliance had taken over, the province had developed ”the worst and the fastest-growing crime situation in the country”.
Special Report: Elections 2004
Wet and windy conditions are set to make driving over the Easter long weekend even more perilous, Arrive Alive said on Thursday. Spokesperson Wendy Watson said traffic was expected to increase on all major routes as worshippers and holiday makers made their way to various destinations.
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The rest of Africa can learn much from South Africa’s election process, the visiting Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum said on Thursday. ”We have observed nine elections throughout the SADC since 1999 and realised how much other countries can learn from South Africa,” said the mission leader.
Special Report: Elections 2004
‘Why should artists vote for you?" This was the question posed to the fishers-of-votes by arts organisations in different provinces over the past month. Generally, it is pretty hard for arts-related concerns to get on to the radar screens of political parties, but in the game of elections, even artists qualify as players, writes Mike van Graan.
Most parties have not given much prominence to environmental issues, focusing instead on jobs and crime. Yet we are already seeing the first frightening heralds of climate change, caused by excessive greenhouse-gas emissions. This could mean crop failure and famine in Southern Africa in the near future. Are any of our politicians paying attention?
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>The Independent Democrats said it has whisked away seven Democratic Alliance members on the eve of elections, although the DA says the ID is guilty of "double-counting defections". Themba Sono, deputy leader of the ID, welcomed "senior registered members of the DA" at a media briefing in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
Road accidents are the biggest cause of death in South Africa among children between the ages of four and 15, and a national plan of action is needed to combat this ”epidemic”, Western Cape provincial minister of health Piet Meyer said on Tuesday. He said on average two children die every day on the country’s roads.
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The convoy leaves before dawn, snaking deep into Zululand while villages sleep. By first light we are at the rendezvous and ready for the final day of Operation Rolling Thunder. Helicopters clatter down on to the field and in groups of 14 soldiers and police officers scramble aboard as the machines rise and race towards mountain peaks.
Heavy rains over parts of the central Karoo at the weekend have inflicted millions of rands of damage to roads and bridges in the region, and caused at least one dam to overflow, the Western Cape government reported on Monday. Communities downstream have been warned about possible flooding.
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The Democratic Alliance’s attorneys will approach the Cape High Court’s judges’ chambers on Monday morning to inform the presiding officer in an urgent application that an out-of-court settlement had been reached over the weekend.
Special Report: Elections 2004
Sales at South Africa’s 30th annual Nederburg Auction on April 2 and 3, arguably the highlight of the wine industry’s calendar, saw wine sales fall by 11,2% to R6,73-million from the record R7,58-million achieved in 2003, the first time a decline has been recorded since 1993.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>One way of analysing elections is to think of them in four phases. First, there are the campaign issues: what do people care about? Second, there is the response of the contesting parties: what campaign strategy do they employ? Third, there are the results. And fourth, political consequences. There is very little strategic capacity to run election campaigns in South Africa, writes Richard Calland.
The assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin — the partially sighted, wheelchair-bound quadraplegic — is a clear demonstration of the paralysis and blindness of Ariel Sharon and the Israeli government, writes Ronnie Kasrils, Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, and Maz Ozinsky is an MPL for the African National Congress in the Western Cape.
Election manifestos: More police doesn’t mean less lawlessness. For many voters, crime is the key issue of this election, and it is not surprising that political parties have given the matter a bit of thought in preparing their election manifestos. Each party makes some excellent points, but at times the rhetoric descends into simply promising more, better and faster.
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Freedom Front Western Cape leader Corne Mulder is suing the Democratic Alliance’s provincial election coordinator, Robin Carlisle, and his party in the Cape High Court for damages to the amount of R250Â 000. The damages are being sought for alleged slander and damage to Mulder’s reputation.
Special Report: Elections 2004
Twenty-seven facilities had met the basic requirements for accreditation to provide quality care for Aids patients, the national Department of Health has announced. The 27 facilities will begin admitting patients and performing HIV testing and medical examinations.
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Democratic Alliance chief whip Douglas Gibson on Wednesday disagreed with one of his MPs when he contended that the DA is not actively campaigning for the lesbian and gay vote in the April elections. Gibson and gay MP Mike Waters were responding to a statement from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance.
Special Report: Elections 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Polls indicate that South Africa’s former ruling party will be lucky to get 15% in the upcoming election — down from about 38% in 1999 — in its stronghold of the Western Cape. But there was no sign of despondency in its ranks when its leader, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, took to meeting voters on the West Coast on Tuesday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
How healthy is South Africa’s public health system? And how big are the gaps between promises and practice? We visit the provinces to determine South Africa’s real state of health. This week the <i>M&G</i> looks at Limpopo, the most northerly of South Africa’s nine provinces, where the extreme poverty of the local inhabitants is constrasted starkly with world-famous luxury game lodges.
There has been a strengthening of businesses in townships across South Africa over the past decade, Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin said during a small-business breakfast meeting in Langa on Friday. He urged Langa business people to come together to help establish a business centre.
The Western Cape provincial working committee of the African National Congress has temporarily suspended Kannaland Municipality Mayor Jeffrey Donson as an ANC member, pending a hearing. According to reports, Donson, who moonlights as a DJ, was confronted by taxpayers over the alleged use of public money to fund this other career.