MBOMBELA – Opposition parties are confident about leaving their mark during the municipal elections.
They stated their views on how the special votes proceeded on Monday and Tuesday at various voting stations across the province.
The EFF’s provincial leader, Mr Collen Sedibe said his party was certain to make good strides in the local government elections held this week.
“Asinavalo tsine. We are ready and so far so good, our party agents were with the IEC officials in the home visits and some in the voting stations, except for a few areas in Ward 38 Bushbuckridge Local Municipality,” he said.
Sedibe claimed electoral officers transported people to stations instead of going to their houses for the special votes in Bushbuckridge.
“We followed them everywhere to make sure that there was no foul play. With the IEC and the ANC, anything is possible,” he said.
Sedibe added that minor incidents were reported at Msukaligwa Local Municipality where poor marking ink was allegedly used.
“We believe this was done deliberately by the IEC to allow the ANC members to vote as many times as they can. We reported this to the IEC office and the local station commander and it was immediately attended to,” he added.
Also read: EFF and ANC scuffle during election
Sedibe voiced his concerns regarding the high number of people registered for special votes in the province, a thing which he believed was done deliberately to favour the ruling party and to fabricate votes.
“We did random calls to some of those registered for special votes and some of them were our followers.
“They said they were not aware that they had registered for special votes because SMSes were only sent to them to say they were registered for special votes. However, we are not shaken, we are following them (IEC) wherever they go.
“We will follow them up to the storage to ensure all the names of people who voted are cancelled from the registration lists.
“We will follow them up to the counting process until the results are out,” he said.
DA’s provincial leader, Mr James Masango said his party agents were also ready at all the voting stations.
“In some areas it seems like the IEC officials were not ready, for instance in Bethal and Steve Tshwete, voting started late on Monday,” he said.
The Bushbuckridge Residents Association’s (BRA) leader, Mr Cleopas Maunye, also concurred with Sedibe’s allegations that people were registered for special votes without their knowledge.
Also read: DA is ready to make a stand in the elections
“It’s the second day of the special votes and we are still sitting on a 15 per cent turnout. It is very poor because people were not aware of this arrangement,” Maunye said on Tuesday.
“We know we are going to win the municipal elections in Bushbuckridge. We believe the community still has confidence in us,” he said.
Also read: Mixed feelings over elections
