Local Elections Wrap-Up

19 May 2011

The first results in last night were from a tiny ward in Randfontein, West of Joburg. In a ward with only nine registered voters, it wasn’t too difficult a job to do to count them. The ANC beat the DA four to three. The rest of the country, however, is a different story.
Officially voting ended at 19:00, but everyone who was in the queue before the cut-off was allowed to vote. By 22:00 there were still people in queues in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumulanga, said chief IEC officer, Pansy Tlakula. The IEC said that all went quite well and that of the 20 859 voting stations nationwide all, but one, were open by 09:30.
There were, however, some issues. There were a number of reports of faulty or missing ID barcode scanners, some light to medium intimidation, some stations not opening on time and oh, some voting tent burnings.
The eyes of the country are, of course, on Cape Town and the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, with the ANC saying they think they’d surprise many.
Helen Zille, said, however that she was not amused as she saw that there were people being handed only one voting paper, instead of the two required. She urged voters to let her know if there were unsavoury happenings afoot:

It was highly suspicious. When I pointed this out to the IEC they got a terrible fright and said it shouldn’t be like this.

In the Free State two presiding officers were fired as the one officer said that the station had run out of ballots, so he ran to his “friend” to get some more.
This wasn’t the only problem that Bloemfontein suffered. On Tuesday evening an election tent was burned and there was a very low turnout on Wednesday, due to intimidation.
Last night, in a press conference in Pretoria, Tlakula said that the IEC had to fire a total of six IEC officials, due to doubts over their impartiality. She said, however, that overall, the voting process went smoothly and she expected a turnout of at least 40%.
Meanwhile ANC election head, Fikile Mbalula said that he was confident of victory, despite fierce opposition campaigning.

We are not scared, we are actually happy that other parties were campaigning in the manner they were campaigning. This is in our blood, we are used to it, it’s in our DNA.
What we can say is that we are confident of an overwhelming victory.

More importantly, I’m sure you’re all curious to learn about my voting experience. Well I trundled off to Laêrskool Menlo Park, in the Eastern suburbs of Pretoria, at about 17:00. I was then sent to the wrong queue, of about 4 people. I then went to the correct queue, of naught people.
I learnt about firemen and astronauts and nurses (in Afrikaans, as this is Afrikaner valley don’t you know). I then put my scrawl on the paper and wended my way home, safe in the knowledge that I could legitimately bitch about the potholes in Mackenzie Street. Attached is an image that illustrates my voting experience.

[Source : News24]