DA election posters disappear in Wards 18 and 103
The IEC said they would investigate the incident when the matter is brought forward by the DA candidates.
TWO Democratic Alliance candidates standing for election in Ward 18 and Ward 103 have reported that their election posters were mysteriously taken down from the street poles and dumped.
According to Gillian Noyce, the DA candidate for Ward 103, a police reservist who was passing the garage outside the Polo Pony hotel in Assagay on Friday 15 July around 1.30pm, noticed someone pulling down the DA candidate’s face posters, systematically breaking them in half before putting them into the closest rubbish bin.
“He said he went across to the person involved who then ran off but not before the reservist had got a picture of him on his cell phone. He then contacted me and told me my posters had been destroyed,” said Noyce.
Noyce then went to take pictures of the destroyed posters (five in total ) to show to the police. The reservist had also phoned the police station to send someone to arrest the man but it is not known whether they were successful.
“Four days prior to this incident the DA were attacked when they went into Ward 8 to meet their activists and community members. Not wanting to cause any fighting they left as quickly as possible. The public should be made aware of the high levels of intolerance being displayed and report any such incidents to the police,” said Noyce.
She added that a case has been opened at the Hillcrest Police Station to deal with the problem.
Melanie Brauteseth, the DA candidate for Ward 18, also said she had been a victim of this crime. She was alerted when a resident, Liz Purdham, observed the DA posters were nowhere to be seen in certain sections of Pinetown. Purdham notified the political party head office, who had informed her that the election candidate’s posters were erected long ago. Brauteseth said she would inform the IEC and the police as well.
Thabani Ngwira, the provincial communications officer at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) Westville branch, said he was away from the office so did not have access to his e-mail but the IEC will investigate the vandalism when he returned to the office on Monday.
