Elections 2019: Only a fraction of Vryheid went out to vote

According to the votes tally from last week’s general elections, only a fraction of the town’s population
went out to vote.
With an estimated population of around 98 000 (according to municipal officials), Vryheid only managed to bring in 18 194 votes, 273 of which were spoilt and declared invalid.

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The largest percentage of the AbaQulusi community who actually voted, cast their vote for the African National Congress (ANC). According to results released by the IEC for AbaQulusi, the ANC clinched 41,40 per cent of the local vote with 7 423, while the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) had 6 224 votes, or 34,71 per cent.

“Vryheid’s population currently sits at just about 98 000. That is just slightly less than 100 000, and to see that less than a quarter of those people went out to vote shows that our town has a serious problem,” said National Chairperson for the South African National Civic Organisation(SANCO), Cllr Lawrence Dube.

Cllr Dube said he believed apathy and a lack of education on the elections within the community, were to blame for the poor turnout.
“The first problem is that of apathy, and we have seen this on a national level even. More people are staying at home and not bothering to vote, because they look at it from a ‘what will I gain from it? Nothing will ever change’ mindset,” explained Cllr Dube.
He said the second issue was the lack of voting education among the people of Vryheid.

“As political parties and as a municipality, we need to take it upon ourselves to ensure we educate our people about how important it is to vote. If a place has a population of 1 000 people and only 50 go out to vote, it means 50 people have an influence on how life is going to be like for all 1 000. Our people need to understand this and I’m hoping this can be done before the local government elections.”

AbaQulusi Mayor, Cllr Jerry Sibiya also expressed grave concern over the figures.
“We are highly concerned about the extremely low turnout. It is really a matter that should not be taken lightly. Although it is difficult to say exactly why most locals decided not to vote, we believe maybe our people are either aggrieved or they not been seeing the change they wanted to see from the leadership they previously voted for. Whatever the reasons are, the numbers are upsetting.”

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Cllr Sibiya said he would have been happier with at least a 60 per cent turnout.
“People need to understand the risks that come with not voting. If they do not vote, then they are not looking out for their own futures. You can’t not vote, then continue to complain about service delivery.
Not voting also means you are punishing those that actually did go out to vote,” said the Mayor.
In closing, Cllr Sibiya said there were only 26 months left until the local government elections,
and added that as a municipality, AbaQulusi hoped to do as much as possible to educate residents on
the importance of their vote.
Despite low turnout, the local IEC branch reported no serious incidents on election
day.
Municipal Electoral Officer,
PJ Ndlovu said, “The elections went by very well, without any issues and or snags. Some of our voting stations opened a bit later than planned, but none were delayed from opening for longer than 30 minutes.”
Ndlovu said he was happy to see AbaQulusi had avoided any type of chaos throughout the day.
“Fortunately, there was no issue of double voting in our town and we were very pleased at that. The
only incidents we know about, were the ones we heard about on
radio and saw on television.”