Mandla Mandela furious over video alleging separate race queues

Nelson Mandelas' eldest grandson Mandla Zwelivelile Mandela expressed concern on the video making rounds where Western Cape voters are seen queuing in different queues, one for whites and one for blacks only.

Furious Mandela, who is the head of the Mandela's traditional leadership in Mvezo, Madiba's birth place, forwarded the video to the Daily Dispatch on Thursday morning.

''We condemn any act of racism in the strongest terms as it is reprehensible and an anathema to our hard won freedom and democracy. For such acts to allegedly occur in 2019 under the aegis and allegedly with the concurrence of our IEC officials is untenable and something no right minded South African should be silent about,'' said Mandela.

In a widely circulated video clip, it appeared that at a voting station in Wellington, Western Cape, there were separate queues were formed for black and white voters. An IEC official can be heard saying that the queue is for older people. The IEC later explained that one of the queues was for students who were filling in forms.

''Whilst we welcome and commend the IECs provisions for emergency workers, elderly pensioners and the disabled for priority queueing, it is very clear from the clip that that is a whites only voters queue and it is very clear that most of the voters in that queue are definitely not of pensionable age.

"We call on the leadership of the IEC to immediately object to this malpractice and bring the culprits responsible to book. We will never tolerate such alleged acts of racism; never, never and never again," said Mandla who is also and ANC MP and is also on the list.

lulamilef@dispatch.co.za