Successful EC voter registration weekend, despite some disruptions

The Eastern Cape’s final voter registration weekend was largely successful despite intimidation and community protests that disrupted operations at 10 voting stations across six municipalities, the Electoral Commission (IEC) said. The disruptions, recorded on Saturday in Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City Metro, King Sabata Dalindyebo, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Kumkani Mhlontlo and Ntabankulu municipalities, resulted in 10 voting stations opening late. Despite this, provincial electoral officer Kayakazi Magudumana said all 4,979 voting stations had opened and the incidents represented only a tiny fraction of the province’s registration sites.

In Kumkani Mhlontlo, one voting station only opened at 2.30pm, leaving residents with about 2½ hours to register before stations closed at 5pm. Magudumana said police had to intervene after IEC staff members were intimidated. “Looking at the number of voting stations that we have, that [10 stations] is about less than 0.3%.

“There were no technical glitches yesterday and there was no voting station where the staff were not ready to open.” Some stations were blocked by community members using padlocks. “With the help of the police, we were able to get into those stations,” she said. The IEC and Dispatch were informed that most of the disruptions were linked to community service delivery grievances. However, four voting stations in Mzamomhle and the wider Gonubie area were closed after disgruntled ANC members protested over the party’s ward councillor selection processes.