The IEC says the presiding officer at the helm of one of the voting stations allegedly opened a ballot box that had been sealed. Furthermore, a member of a political party in Moretele has been arrested by police for interrupting the voting process in the area. Other arrests made in the country include that of a presiding officer in KwaZulu-Natal and a Newzroom Afrika journalist at a voting station in Soweto. After intervention by the commission, the journalist was released and an investigation into the circumstances of the apprehension has now been opened.

Meanwhile, the situation at the Methodist Church in the North West settlement of Itsoseng, which serves as a voting station, has tapered down. This as ballot boxes arrived at the station at lunchtime following a five-hour delay in voting. OFM News reported earlier that prospective voters, made up mostly of the elderly, had been queueing since 07:00 this morning. Resident Moeder Mmota told OFM News that, at 11:00, an official from the IEC arrived with the ballot boxes but had to return with them because they were the wrong ones. It’s alleged the Itsoseng ballot boxes were held up in Lichtenburg on Sunday. 

Earlier on in the day, OFM News spoke to Lichtenburg resident and EFF ward 6 leader, Tebogo Moipolai, who was a part of the group that held up IEC officials in the area for 3 hours on Sunday, alleging that some suspicious activities had taken place. Moipolai says they observed an IEC official offloading some ballot boxes in a suspicious manner on Sunday, and held said official up for 3 hours demanding to know why he was leaving two boxes behind in the Navara van.

Meanwhile the head of the IEC in the North West, Tumelontle Thiba, previously told media that everything was sorted for the local government elections, including contingency plans for possible load-shedding in the form of IEC lanterns and generators.

According to Thiba, the generators and floodlights are from Eskom and the disaster management offices of district municipal offices respectively. Load-shedding is of concern to the IEC seeing as the counting of ballots begins after the polls close and continues into the evening. So electricity is important in this case and they are hopeful no load-shedding will occur.

On Friday evening – the eve of the special voting period – Eskom brought rolling load-shedding to a halt. The power utility had introduced power cuts as matriculants in the country began their end-of-year examinations to much uproar from the public. What started off as stage 2 load-shedding nearly two weeks ago, rose to stage 4 this past week. On Friday Eskom said it was halting the load-shedding after generation capacity recovered sufficiently and reduced constraints on the system. The utility apologised to grade 12 learners studying for their end-of-year exams, explaining that load-shedding is a last resort for them to maintain the stability of the system.

OFM News