Look and smell good, don’t smoke when engaging with people, get a nice T-shirt and be presentable, do small acts of kindness like cleanups and perhaps offer plastic chairs.
Those were some of rules of voter registration engagement executed by candidates, members and leaders from parties across the political spectrum during the two-day voter registration campaign by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Saturday and Sunday.
EFF’s Boitumelo Glucose Diretse said president Julius Malema “told us to look and smell good. Go to Mr Price, Pep or Jet to get that nice T-shirt and look presentable. Don’t smoke when you are engaging with people,” he posted on social media.
Meanwhile Rise Mzansi national deputy chairperson Cilna Steyn, accompanied by volunteers to check their voter registration status, did a cleanup of Constantia Kloof.
On Saturday, eThekwini, ANC party chairperson Gwede Mantashe was accompanied by provincial chairperson Siboniso Duma, eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede and speaker Thabani Nyawose to address service delivery “challenges”.
After passing a sewage spillage on a road in Inanda, it is understood Nyawose made a call to infrastructure officials and asked them to clear the blockages.
Mantashe was in eThekwini leading the ANC’s registration campaign drive on the first day.
On Sunday he made a fleeting visit to the region’s office before visiting Mandeni’s Gcwalamoya voting station.
He was also expected to make another visit in ward 18, but was summoned to an emergency meeting in Durban.
Regional secretary in greater KwaDukuza region Sphesihle Zulu said they were pleased with how the voter registration had turned out, which breached the 10,000 mark.
“We still have to zoom into those numbers. We need to establish how many new voters and how many of the people had changed their addresses,” said Zulu.
He said their campaign was geared towards the people who fall into the 18-35 age category. He said the campaign had started some time ago and was spearheaded by a more than 3,000-strong volunteer workforce.
“There is a big prospect that those people may not be loyal voters of a particular party,” said Zulu.
The start of the day was great yesterday looking at the number of those who did not open their voting stations on time. Of the total 4,973 voting stations, only under 20 did not open on time.
— Thabani Ngwira, IEC KZN provincial communications officer
He said there were some reports of technical glitches with some of IEC’s equipment.
The party governs all the five municipalities under the iLembe district municipality.
He said, while criss-crossing some of the households on their campaign trail, people had questions about service delivery.
“Our opponents don’t get these demands because people know that they also have to come back and ask us to deliver. It’s an advantage we have the stranglehold of national, provincial and municipal officers,” said Zulu.
He said they had expected that people would demand certain things in exchange for votes, however, he claimed the region was “stable in terms of security and safety of people”.
“There is no indication that tensions are high. We can assure everybody would be safe. Even people become wary of coming to voter registration,” said Zulu.
He defended speculation that the ANC had left the elderly voters out in the cold.
“Even at home you find that the budget allocation is spent on young people. We are trying by all means to service the constituency of the elderly people,” said Zulu.
ANC provincial spokesperson Mafika Mndebele would not be drawn to commenting on why Mantashe’s visit was cut short.
The ANCYL brought new meaning to supporting their voters when president Collen Malatji donated chairs to Zion Christian Church in Soweto as part of their community engagement activities and to emphasise the importance of voter registration.
The party said the visit to the church “underscored the significance of fostering strong ties between political leadership and religious institutions, recognising the pivotal role they play in community development and civic participation”.
IEC KZN provincial communications officer Thabani Ngwira said more than 200,000 showed up at voter registration venues in KZN.
He said about 19% new registrations were recorded, while the rest were voters who provided new contact details.
“The start of the day was great yesterday looking at the number of those who did not open their voting stations on time. Of the total 4,973 voting stations, only under 20 did not open on time,” said Ngwira.
“This includes the 10 that was blown away overnight because of the rain. A tent was blown away in ward 9 in uMngeni municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.
“We also saw community protests that impacted our operations at Impendle, Estcourt, Inkosi Langalibalele, KwaDukuza, Mkhambathini and Kokstad,” said Ngwira.
He said the close working relationship that the commission enjoys with the police ensured that the situation was defused in those voting districts.
“We have operations which opened as late as 12.30pm yesterday. We are happy that all of them eventually opened and we were able to run our operation,” said Ngwira.
On Sunday, the IEC experienced a number of challenges but said it had a busy day in terms of operations and turnout.
“We only had four voting stations that could not open and some opened around 10 or eleven,” said Ngwira.
He said there were issues at Inkosi Langalibalele’s municipal ward 23 and Nkandla in ward 12, where community members blocked access and in Jozini ward 15, where area managers had problems.
He said there was an issue with online registration, which was inundated, but these were later resolved.
“It’s functioning. They must try late at night we are operating over 23,000 voting management devices,” Ngwira.
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