All eyes are on the upcoming Umdoni Ward 13 by-election since the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has not yet verified 42 of the 235 entries in the voters’ roll.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) had recently lodged objections to the 235 registered voters following fears that there were likely to be voting registration irregularities.
The by-election will be held at Umzinto Community Hall on July 27 from 7am to 9pm.
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) Port Shepstone regional supervisor, Zolile Kasphiwo told Fever that eight political parties will be contesting Ward 13.
He said the Allied Movement for Change, African National Congress (ANC), Democratic Alliance (DA), Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Al Jama-ah, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Abantu Batho Congress (ABC), and Progressive Federal Party (PFP), will be going head to head.
He said the party that wins the elections will need to win by at least 100 votes so that whoever tries to question the outcome of the elections and the unverified voters; will not have a leg to stand on.
Kasiphiwo said the by-elections followed the resignation of the DA ward councillor who had won during the 2021 local government elections. Ravinand Maharaj is the former DA councillor and is now the councillor candidate for the ANC.
“The DA won Ward 13 in 2021 by a mere 37 votes against the ANC. The DA councillor then resigned from the party and is now the councillor candidate for the ANC. When a ward councillor resigns then there must be a vacancy. This by-election was supposed to be held on February 23 but because the DA took the IEC to court based on 235 voters who were allegedly not from the area,” said Kasiphiwo.
He added that the DA won the case against IEC, saying that in May, the Electoral Court decided that the IEC had to go back and verify voters using GPS coordinates because there are no street names in most of Ward 13.
“From June 16, we embarked again on a door-to-door address verification process and we managed to get 161 voters. We managed to verify another 22 voters through third-party information. A total of 11 voters were verified also, so in total we verified 193. We could not verify 42 voters. The 11 voters that were verified in February, their votes will be quarantined until they can provide proof of residence. The 42 unverified voters will be isolated from the voters roll, they will need to provide proof that they did register to vote and their proof of residence,” said Kasiphiwo.
He added that the 42 unverified voters make the upcoming by-election tricky, saying that mostly because Umdoni Municipality is one of the hung municipalities in the Ugu district.
It’s a hung council when no party wins the majority of the seats. Kasiphiwo said that this is why they are encouraging residents of Ward 13 to come out in numbers on July 27, adding that online registration for special votes are still open and will only close on July 15.
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