NELSPRUIT – While violent protests affected other provinces over the final voter-registration weekend, the Lowveld experienced quiet registrations with few hiccups and no violence reported by Sunday afternoon.
Mr Steve Ngwenya, electoral officer of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) in Mpumalanga, told Lowvelder that on Saturday morning, three incidents in Mpumalanga caused three stations to open a little later than planned, two of which occurred in the Lowveld.
“I think the weekend has gone well,” he said. “It is very important for the IEC to have all venues made available to us. Of the 1 680 voting stations, three opened on Saturday just before 09:00.”
One was in Nkomazi’s Block C where protesters against the tribal authority barred access to its land. “We looked for alternatives and a shop owner let us use his shop, which was nearby,” said Ngwenya.
The other incident in the Lowveld was in Bushbuckridge, where about 15 people blocked the gate to one of the venues and the police had to disperse them.
“Fortunately, we work closely with SAPS, SANDF, and the provincial disaster management. All the voting stations here have been assessed by intelligence units and found to be low-risk venues. We are lucky that the people are peaceful.”
From the IEC’s perspective, the registration period is a dry run for the general elections, to perfect its systems and logistics. While Mpumalanga targeted two-million registered voters, Ngwenya admitted that this was a tough target. “Our aim is to get more people to vote.”
Click here for voter registration info in the province.
He urged those who have been deterred from voting in the past because they were not in their districts on election day, to note that they would have two options to cast their votes this year. They can either apply for a special vote in a two-week period to be announced and cast it in their voting district a couple of days before May 7.
Alternatively, people can go to any station outside the district where they are registered, where they will be required to fill in a Section 24A application form, which is really an affidavit, and then they can vote.
If they vote in the same province where they are registered, they can cast votes for the national and provincial government on two ballots. However, if people do so outside the province, they will be allowed to vote only for the national government.
