VUYO MKIZE
Voters got up at the crack of dawn in Meadowlands to vote but were left frustrated as stations experienced glitches.
There was a shortage of ballot papers in Zone 9 polling station at Palesa Primary School, which resulted in more than 100 people waiting in long queues for hours before getting their chance to cast their votes.
“We’ve been here since 6am and it is frustrating because we woke up excited to vote. They told us they had 200 ballot papers and we had to let the elderly people go in first. Then we had to wait because the papers ran out and we weren’t given a proper explanation for it,” said Linda Maboe.
“It’s wrong, they should have been better organised than this. About 400 people who were in the queue very early left because of this. It makes us angry that we’ve had to wait so long,” another voter said.
The station’s presiding officer, Mary Makwana, admitted to having experienced delays in the delivery of ballot papers for the station, but said they had been delivered by 9am.
Meanwhile, outside Livhuwani Primary School, tensions rose as independent candidate Patrick Mohlophegi confronted two ANC members for being stationed outside the school, claiming they were meddling with the election process.
However, one of the women, Ndivhuho Sekoba, defended their presence outside the station and pointed out that it was within legal bounds for them to be there to assist people registered as ANC members.
Police officers allowed the women to work from their information desk, but confiscated ANC posters hung on the information desk directly outside the Totomeng Primary School station.