Limpopo IEC ready to ensure free, fair elections

All logistical and administrative preparations that are necessary to ensure free and fair elections in Limpopo on 8 May are in place.
“Now it is over to the political parties and candidates contesting these elections to take the baton and play their important part in encouraging participation by voters and ensuring that we have successful, peaceful, tolerant, free, fair and credible elections,” Provincial Electoral Officer of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) Limpopo, Nkaro Mateta said to delegates to the Moral Regeneration Movement’s media engagement session at Capricorn District Municipality last Wednesday.
Mateta took the opportunity to inform delegates about the preparations for the national and provincial elections that started 21 months ago. “As we speak today, deliveries of election materials to local storage facilities around the province commenced on the first of April and will be concluded within reasonable time,” Mateta said.
Mateta alluded to a number of milestones that were reached in line with the program:
Deliminitation
Voting districts were re-delimitated to enhance easy access and to reduce the waiting period at voting stations. This has seen the number of voting districts grow from 3 111 in 2016 to 3 157 for this year’s election. “This is an increase of approximately 46 voting districts since the 2016 municipal elections – and about 154 more than the 2014 elections. We are also pleased that while increasing the total number of voting stations, we concurrently decreased the number of temporary voting stations in the province from 159 in 2014 to 141 for now,” Mateta reported.
Challenges with infrastructure
Mateta said that, of the 313 voting centres and 141 temporary voting stations in the province, 165 are without electricity, 189 are without toilets, 167 are without water, 421 are without ramps, 507 local roads need to be re-gravelled and 153 are without network coverage. She confirmed that a task team has been activated to deal with the matters.
Political parties contesting the elections
A record number of 34 political parties with 946 candidates are contesting for the 49 seats in the Provincial Legislature, being 14 more than the number for 2014. “Furthermore, only 48% of the nominated candidates are female. This is disappointing given that females make up 60% of the registered voters on the province’s segment of the voters’ roll,” Mateta remarked.
Voters’ roll
Limpopo has 2,61 million registered voters and percentage wise, this represents 9,75% of the total national voters’ roll. The IEC in Limpopo has employed a cohort of additional 188 voter education facilitators that were deployed across the province to provide voter education to key stakeholders including the youth, the disabled and the elderly.
“Currently these voter education facilitators are providing the provincial citizenry with balloting education which is very important in the light of the unusually long ballot papers these elections will have,” Mateta added.
Recruitment and training of electoral staff
A total of 9 471 Presiding Officers, Deputy Presiding Officers and Voters’ Roll Officers were recruited for deployment. “This group will also form the core of the team of volunteers who will run the voting stations on election day – along with a further 22 000 additional support staff who are currently recruited and trained,” Mateta explained.
Conflict resolution and mitigation
Over 1 000 individuals in leadership and conflict management in electoral processes were engaged nationally. “This is a vast and valuable network across South Africa that will be able to contribute to the prevention, mitigation and management of conflict at grassroots level.”
Load shedding
“Load-shedding is an acute concern for the IEC and we have been interacting with Eskom in order to anticipate the impact of load shedding on the elections process. A key consideration in this regard is the availability of emergency lighting to support the voting and counting processes beyond dusk. Together with Coghsta, we are exploring whatever contingency plans we can make to help protect the elections,” Mateta assured.
In conclusion, Mateta wished all the participating political parties well.

Story & photo: BARRY VILJOEN
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