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Buffalo city

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ANC president Jacob Zuma (SUBS:CORRECT addressed the national rally along with South African Communist Party secretary-general Blade Nzimande (SUBS:CORRECT) and Cosatu president Sidumo Dlamini (SUBS:CORRECT) Cosatu’s national rally at the Mdtansane’s Sisa Dukashe Stadium today (SUBS:CORRECT) to mark Workers’ Day and celebrate the ANC’s election victory.
Thousands of workers and ANC supporters are expected to attend, with earlier reports that organisers were anticipating as many as 150 000 people.

An guesstimate puts the attendance within the stadium at over 30 000. It was impossible from the media area to actually see the full attendance.

Buffalo City Municipality (BCM) said it was fully involved in ensuring the event is a success. BCM spokesperson Samkelo Ngwenya (SUBS:CORRECT) said:
“The relevant members of our teams including traffic, law enforcement and disaster management have been meeting with our colleagues from other relevant government departments such as South African Police Service,”
In a statement Cosatu said the celebrations were taking place days after April 27 when 15 years of freedom and democracy were celebrated.
“Our celebrations are taking place while we are also celebrating last week’s historic election victory for our revolutionary movement – the ANC.
“Today’s rallies are therefore a double celebration. We have succeeded in defending our revolutionary movement, the ANC, the tripartite alliance and congress movement as a whole.”

Pictures by Bazil Raubach©2009

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Eastern Cape elections in brief. (head)

Despite the ANC's overwhelming success at the ballot box, the ANC seemed to have failed to effectively grow their 2004 margins in some vital areas of the province.

Eastern Cape urban voters came out strongly against the ANC in the two biggest municipalities in the Eastern Cape.

Rhodes university interestingly did a 180 degree turn around compare to their 2004 elections and the new 'kids' on the block --Cope took over from the UDM party as the provinces official opposition.

If you consider Cope was just 127 days old when they contested the elections they did remarkably well, in 2010 there are municipal elections and the general sense is these national elections are a huge 'wake-up' call for the ruling party.

The ANC provincial vote was reduced to 49.64 percent in Nelson Mandela Metro, down from 69.39 percent in 2004.
And overall, the ANC grew its support in only five of the province’s 39 voting districts.

The biggest beneficiaries of the ANC’s misfortune in Port Elizabeth were the Congress of the People (COPE) and the Democratic Alliance, which obtained 17.33 percent and 28.13 percent of the vote respectively. The DA increased its support from 21.59percent five years ago.

A similar trend occurred in the aspirant metro of Buffalo City, where the ANC secured 66.85 percent, down from 82.41 percent in 2004.

Cope obtained 16.7 percent and the DA 11.42 percent, up from its 9.14 percent in 2004.

The ANC saw its support dwindle in Lukhanji Municipality (Queenstown) from 86 percent in 2004 to 72 percent this week.

“The voters … of those cities have identified that the ANC is really not competent to run them efficiently and effectively. They are looking for an alternative government like the people of Cape Town,” said Cope provincial chairman Andile Nkuhlu.

Looking at the elections in a holistic manner, SADC's mission head Clement Dlamini announced “The elections were fair, transparent and credible.”

In the run-up to the elections, political parties were allowed to hold rallies without interference, which indicated tolerance among parties.

The mission however raised concerns about the use of cardboard box ballot boxes and the presence of political stands near polling stations. Although there was a strong police presence at all voting stations throughout the province.

Dlamini said the mission recommended that South Africa in future use translucent ballot boxes and amend the electoral law to prohibit political activities within the vicinity of the polling stations to prevent potential problems in the future. There were isolated electoral complaints that were being dealt with as was the case when voting started at Nompumelelo township in East London. Both Cope and the ANC had to be removed from the entrances of the voting station. They both were moved to about 50meters from the entrance of the well policed polling station.

While concerns such as teachers acting as electoral officers were valid, it did not discredit the election, he added.

Dlamini explained that teachers were perceived not to be impartial by virtue of being members of the SA Democratic Teacher’s Union, which had endorsed the ANC.

On a local regional newspaper based in East London, there was a fair amount of blog activity, where bloggers bemoaned poor service, rudeness and arrogance by the teachers. Poor training and disrespect for the elder was widely reported to have occurred especially in the traditional black voting areas.
Young first time voters said very little was done to accommodate them and guide them through the process.
Dlamini went on to urge political parties and candidates to respect the will of the people.
“Any grievances that they might have should be pursued in line with the relevant laws of the country,” he said.
“Political parties followed relevant legislation to address election-related issues affecting them with the electoral commission,” he said.
Dlamini said they had observed that counting of ballot papers started immediately after closing of polling station at about 9.30pm on the eve of 22nd April 2009.
“The vote counting process was conducted meticulously and lawful … the results were recorded in results slips.”
He said the counting was done in the presence of party agents, and International observers, who then signed off the results slips.

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