THIS year’s national and provincial elections will be remembered as the ‘Indelible Stink’.

There was quite the commotion and concern that some voters were able to rub the ink off and line up to make another X.

Some R2.6 million was spent (allegedly) on these special pens. You’d think possibly they would have been thoroughly tested. That’s a lot of ammo to cough up for something that doesn’t work properly.

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There are those suggesting this was planned or rigged. Seems unlikely.

That would be one heck of a con to pull off. How would you communicate that to all your voters without it getting out?

It’s seems more likely that is was a cost-cutting exercise gone wrong somewhere along the line.

The Independent Electoral Commission has issued assurances that as the ink mark was only one of the measures in place to prevent double voting, it was unlikely that voters were able to manipulate the system.

In terms of the elections overall, there were no real surprises for me.

Most expected the ANC to win, with a reducing majority.

Cyril Ramaphosa, it seems, has been able to steady things and avoid a potentially bigger drop in those numbers. 

The DA is still the main opposition in the country although frustratingly for its leaders, hasn’t shown any growth on last time round.

The simultaneous spike in the Freedom Front Plus votes could have something to do with this as land issues became a major talking point.

The EFF has shown some growth as Julius Malema continues to attract members to his party.

One wonders if the EFF would sustain itself should Malema opt out at some stage.

The IFP has done all right and seems to have established itself as the official opposition in KwaZulu-Natal, but not by that much.

It was a major disappointment so many – a figure mentioned was nine million – registered voters did not make their mark.  

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