Voting at Rooishuiskraal and Rietspriut stations in Centurion, Pretoria, where Rise Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi is expected to make his X, got off to a chaotic start.
Voting only began at 7.38am and presiding officer Boitumelo Segwatlhe said there were a number of challenges at the warehouse.
“Only the area manager is allowed to get all the material that we have here, including material for the other stations that are under her,” she said.
Segwatlhe said the area manager had to carry all the material by herself and hand it over to the presiding officer.
Impatient voters to blame
“We had to load it in the car and wait for the patrol cars. We were assigned one car for the whole area. So we had to wait for all the stations to get their material delivered,” she said.
Voters had been queueing since 5am to make their marks. And when voting did finally start 38 minutes later, there was already a long line of impatient citizens.
Segwatlhe claimed that impatient voters who believed they could use either of the two sub-stations were primarily to blame for the chaos.
“This is a voting centre with two sub-stations separated according to surnames. At some point, one station had no queue while the other had a long queue.
“So people thought they could simply go to the other station, and we had to explain that we have two voter rolls.”
More female eligible voters
A total of 336 400 voters are expected to cast their votes at the Rooihuiskraal station.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) revealed that over 27.79-million voters — the highest since the dawn of democracy in South Africa — were eligible to cast their votes in the 2024 national and provincial elections.
The IEC also stated that 15-million of the eligible voters are female, representing more than 55%.
The 2024 elections coincide with South Africa’s celebration of 30 years of freedom and democracy.
