Violence erupts at some stations

Voting at Buffalo City’s Cambridge location was disrupted by angry residents who were protesting against an “imposed” councillor candidate for their ward.

More than 200 people took to the streets burning tyres to show their anger.

Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) staff had to be escorted by police to the area as residents burned tyres on the road.

They vandalised the doors of the voting station and attempted to petrol bomb the structure.

Police retaliated by throwing stun grenades and shooting residents with rubber bullets.

The ANC’s mayoral candidate Xola Pakati was casting his vote at Ward 16 Morningside at a time when police were squaring off with the protesters in Cambridge. The residents did not want voting to take place in Cambridge.

Eastern Cape police said yesterday by 1pm they had arrested seven people and charged them with public violence.

They will appear in the East London Magistrate’s Court soon.

EFF election coordinator in the area Bonisile Makati said there were 2600 residents registered to vote in the area but by 1pm only 13 had voted.

“We were supposed to vote here but the situation is not allowing us to do that. People are not happy with service delivery here – they are saying they cannot vote.

“They say they are ANC people, they are in a faction. Their preferred councillor candidate, who is supposed to be representing them, did not make the cut on the candidate list,” Makati said.

“Our members want to vote but they are afraid because there are threats. One resident was beaten today for voting.”

Pakati said he had been made aware of the protest and that it was being attended to.

“Well, there are certain hiccups here and there. For instance, in Cambridge there were protests and that matter is being attended to by the law-enforcement agencies,” Pakati said.

Voting proceeded smoothly in Duncan Village, Pefferville, Buffalo Flats, Fynbos and Egoli despite heavy downpours of rain.

Meanwhile in Mdantsane a number of glitches were reported in some of the stations visited by the Dispatch team. They ranged from dysfunctional and inadequate scanning devices, confusion over the new ward demarcations resulting in some voters being turned away as they went to wrong stations, and power failure.

Some Mdantsane voting stations did not have electricity when visited yesterday morning, forcing voters to cast their votes in the dark.

At the Mzingisi Primary School in NU1 voters said there was only one scanner working, making the whole process “very slow”.

An irate grandmother from NU6, Nosipho Sindesi said: “I walked with my one-year-old grandchild and we arrived at the station at 6.30am but there was no electricity at this school and the whole process was delayed.”

Electricity was later restored at the school.

The Mdantsane police had to intervene when the EFF clashed with the ANC in ward 20 in NU7.

The ward is the EFF’s stronghold in the township and the ANC was accused of campaigning inside the voting station boundaries at the NU7 community hall.

EFF BCM regional deputy chairman Ayanda Lento said: “The ANC people are not used to being watched and they are not used to pure democracy”.

Following the EFF’s complaint the presiding police and an IEC officer chased away the voters camped outside the hall, who were proudly wearing ANC branded clothing, “to maintain peace”.