IEC confident of orderly election, despite protests

Relatively mild and fair weather is predicted by the South African Weather Service as millions of South Africans go to the polls on Wednesday.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) said the weather service also indicated there were no severe weather warnings for election day.

IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo, speaking at the IEC main results operation centre in Pretoria, said the commission had not yet received accurate figures for the special votes cast on Monday and Tuesday. But the indications were that the process went well throughout the country.

The provinces with most of the outstanding special votes were Eastern Cape and North West.

Mamabolo said additional resources were allocated to the Eastern Cape to enable home visits as it had the highest numbers of special voters, and because of protests there.

Forty-seven voting stations could not open in the province on Monday due to community protests.

Similarly, resources would be beefed up in the North West which was slightly behind schedule on Monday night, also due to unrest.

He said two stations did not open in Khanyesa, protesters burnt an IEC vehicle and a car belonging to the commission’s area manager was stoned. Despite these incidents, the IEC was confident all special votes would be completed on Tuesday.

“Our view is that we had a very good start on Monday. I think we have laid the basis for voting tomorrow (Wednesday).

“The election should be conducted in an orderly fashion. We are very confident of that,” Mamabolo said.

He said about 200,000 election officials were ready to conduct the election from 7am until 9pm on Wednesday.

Voters were expected to use a valid, green bar-coded ID book, a smart card ID or a valid temporary ID certificate as a form of identification at the polling stations.

Home affairs department branches would be open from 7am to 8pm today to issue temporary ID certificates or for voters to collect their smart cards.

He warned against taking photographs of ballot papers at the polling booths.

“The secrecy of the vote is protected by law and it is an offence to take a photograph of a marked ballot.”

He also announced that special votes from 113 of the 121 foreign missions were received by April 27. The outstanding batches of votes to come from Algiers in Algeria, Brussels in Belgium, Shanghai in China, Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Asmara in Eritrea, Tokyo in Japan, Sao Tome in Sao Tome and Principe, and Caracas in Venezuela were en route.

“We hope to receive them before 9pm tomorrow night (Wednesday).

“The electoral commission calls on every South African citizen to celebrate our 25th anniversary of democracy by ensuring the elections take place in the spirit of 1994.

“Let voting continue peacefully, calmly and without disruption and let us once again show the world that South Africa remains a shining light of democracy in action,” Mamabolo said.

IEC vice-chairperson Janet Love said every voting station was equipped with braille facilities to enable blind voters to cast their ballots.

Love appealed to all political parties to ensure their supporters respected the electoral code of conduct around voting stations.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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