Eight voting stations fail to open in KZN
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says it is satisfied with the first day of special voting on Saturday.
This despite some minor disruptions at some voting stations around the country.
The commission’s CEO Sy Mamabolo told a media briefing the IEC approved some 1.1 million applications for special votes, which is a 62% increase compared to 2016.
Mamabolo says reports from the various provinces indicated the majority of stations opened on time.
There were some disruptions caused by service delivery protests, weather and other issues.
Overnight storms blew away tents in Gauteng, the Eastern Cape and North West.
In KwaZulu-Natal, eight voting stations were unable to open due to disputes related to traditional leadership.
“The issue is related to disputes about traditional leadership and communities supporting one of the traditional leaders where there are disputes about who the authentic leader of that community is.
“There is mobilisation against our process and working together with security agencies we should be able to open those voting stations, because there are people who applied for special votes, and those people should be able to vote.
“Our contingency plan is to open the stations and have those stations function. All those issues have been noted by security agencies and we will make sure that between now and tomorrow those people have their special votes received.”
Mamabolo assured provisions will be made for those who were not able to vote.
