A few glitches are being experienced, for example at one centre (Copesville Secondary School) voting registers had been switched and ended up at the wrong polling stations and at another centre – a voter had been registered as deceased. It should be noted however that this was an isolated case since most stations had not turned away voters for not appearing on the roll.
There are more than 19,000 voting centres across South Africa and the IEC has reported that it has registered less than 6,000 domestic and international voters meaning that there is a severe gaps in terms of monitoring and observing polling stations, thereby implying that some parties will highly likely get away with loopholes.
Campaigning continues
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| Illegal campaign posters outside a polling station. (Photo: Norwegian Church Aid) |
A puzzling concern for observers at the moment is the issue of party regalia and campaign materials, (t-shirts, flyers, posters, music) even as the voting is going on, it seems the campaigning is also still on-going. Ordinarily, campaigning stops 24 hours before the election day. It is not clear whether IEC officials do not know what the law says or if they are simply ignoring it. Officials are giving contradictory statements – for example when asked about "T-shirts" one IEC official first indicated that there was no problem so far experienced with people bringing their "T-shirts", and later turned to say they were afraid that if they asked them to take them off the people would be angry and possibly start fighting. The campaign materials concern is also being raised by observers monitoring the elections from Cape Town.
NGOs teach communities that the law allows such campaign materials within a distance of 100m outside the polling station. But at polling stations visited such as Bombay civil centre, Sobantu Community Hall, Tamboville, Copesville Community Hall, Copesvile Secondary School, all had ANC materials at the polling stations. At Thembalethu, the ACDP also had a desk with materials at the station. Except for two polling stations , COPE presents – in terms of campaign materials and party agents is not visible. Campaign materials at the polling stations gives unfair advantage and may highly likely influence voters.
Police are present
Although the voting is so far peaceful, there is visible police presence at all the polling stations, inside the halls and outside. The voters appear to be free as they queue, there is no obvious evidence of intimidation. Of concern though was a polling station where an individual wearing party regalia was "interviewing" voters and seemed recording some details in his notebook.
Some party agencies indicated that as the day goes they anticipated some possible violent incidences – " due to anxiety", they said.
Moreblessings Chidaushe
Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu Natal
22 March 2009
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