THE DA in Gauteng has intensified its bid to retain control of the City of Tshwane while also aiming at garnering majority votes in the City of Joburg and Mogale City Local Municipality in Krugersdorp.
The party also wants to retain its control of the Midvaal Local Municipality in Meyerton in the Vaal and it is the only municipality which has been under the sole DA control for more than a decade.
Yesterday, DA provincial leader Solly Msimanga accompanied various of his party mayoral candidates in the three metros of Joburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane as well as Tyrone Gray of Mogale City and Peter Teixeira of Midvaal. Msimanga and various of his mayoral candidates visited various retirement villages in the respective towns of Gauteng to assist with special votes. The mayoral candidates also visited on their own various voting stations to monitor whether the voting was proceeding smoothly. One of the places visited by Joburg mayoral candidate Mpho Phalatse was the Leeuwkop Prison in Sandton. Phalatse is facing tough challenge as 56 political parties are contesting for the mayoral position of the City of Joburg.
One of the contestant, his former City of Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba - who together with Phalatse will be voting at the same voting station in Sandton on Monday. Phalatse used to serve as City of Joburg’s MMC for Health and Social Development while Mashaba was mayor. The DA’s mayoral candidates are expected to visit various congregations today ahead of voting on Monday.
Msimanga, however, had mixed feelings about his campaign and special votes conducted by the Electoral Commission (IEC).
“I visited several voting stations across the Tshwane, Mogale and the Vaal regions and have been engaging with our public representatives and party agents on the ground.
“Some of the challenges that we encountered were that several voting stations opened late especially in the Metro areas.
“Some of the temporary voting stations blew away overnight which caused problems and delayed opening,” Msimanga said.
The IEC yesterday confirmed that some of their voting stations had blown away by the storms but said those voting stations have since been restored.
Msimanga, however, said the more serious problem was that there were allegedly not enough envelopes and ballot boxes at some voting stations.
“In some instances, we picked up that the IEC gave voters one ballot instead of multiple ballots. We received some complaints from people who registered for special votes who were chased away from the voting stations. In some cases the IEC officials missed some of their home visits and appointments, leaving many voters who are unable to visit voting stations without any options of voting,” Msimanga said.
He further said another issue was the VMD machines which tend to be slow which could delay voting on Monday, was“ one of the problems that we hoped the IEC would have solved” since the last registration weekend.
“We have lodged all our issues with the IEC and we have escalated some of the more serious issues to the National Party Liaison Committee. We are keeping detailed information of complaints of all IEC issues,” Msimanga said.
POLITICAL BUREAU