Pretoria – Voting stations around the country have closed, marking the end of Election Day.
However, the electoral process is far from over, as the arduous task of vote counting will get underway in earnest.
Voting stations opened at 7am and closed at 7pm for the 2016 Local Government Elections. However, voters who are in queues by 7pm are still permitted to vote, provided they arrived at voting stations before 7pm.
The IEC’s Chief Electoral Officer, Mosotho Moepya, briefed the media on what has largely been described as a successful Election Day, despite some incidents. Bad weather in parts of the country and deaths in the vicinity of two voting stations are among these incidents.
There are over 26 million voters on the national voters’ roll. The Electoral Commission distributed election material to the 22 612 voting stations across the country. This includes 153 000 ballot boxes, 133 000 voting booths and approximately 1.8 million A4 pages of the voters’ roll to provide a copy of the segment of the voters’ roll for each voting station.
It also distributed 60 tons of stationery to voting stations, including 580 000 pens and 45 000 large banners to mark the voting stations.
The IEC printed a record 73.9 million ballot papers for these elections. These ballot papers include 4 649 unique ballot papers representing political parties and independent candidates contesting each municipality and each ward.
There were also 31 mobile voting stations – the majority of which were in KwaZulu-Natal (with 12) and Mpumalanga (12). The IEC also recruited and trained over 177 000 election officials. Over 70% are women and 40 000 of them are under 25 years old. More than 138 000 of the staff, which is about 78%, are unemployed.
Earlier on Wednesday, Acting National Police Commissioner Kgomotso Phahlane said over 75 000 police members have been deployed countrywide to ensure a safe and successful election process.
Nationally, all departments and agencies, together with the South African Police Service (SAPS), have deployed 279 291 personnel. Over 18 government departments and agencies are performing duties with the SAPS at the National Joint Operational (NATJOINTS) Centre and Provincial Joint Operational Centres across the country.
The day at a glance
Moepya said by 5pm today, all voting stations were reported as open and all logistical and other challenges which had impacted voting earlier in the day had been resolved.
“The Electoral Commission is especially pleased that no significant incidents of unrest or deliberate disruptions to voting have been reported.
“However, the worsening weather conditions in some parts of the country – notably the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and parts of the Northern Cape – continue to present challenges to the voting process especially in temporary structures,” said Moepya.
At least 30 tents had been reported as being significantly affected by gale force winds. Moepya said the Electoral Commission took a decision to allow voting stations in the worst affected areas to move to nearby permanent structures where feasible.
Deaths and injuries
Two deaths were reported at or in the vicinity of voting stations. These occurred in Ingwe Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal and Struisbaai in the Western Cape.
“In both incidents, it would appear that the deaths were of natural causes,” said Moepya.
The Electoral Commission also received a report shortly before 5pm today regarding an alleged shooting near a voting station in ward 26 in the newly created municipality, LIM345 (comprising Malamulele and Vuwani), in Limpopo.
The incident was reported to have occurred in the Malamulele area. No further details or confirmation were available at the time of issuing this statement.
Moepya said there were about 56 voting stations in the Vuwani area. The IEC took a decision to close voting stations at 5pm there.
An election official was also seriously injured in a motor vehicle accident in the Northern Cape and had to be airlifted to hospital in Kimberly.
“The Electoral Commission extends its condolences to the families of those deceased and wishes our election staff member a speedy recovery,” said Moepya. – SAnews.gov.za
