South Africa’s local government is comprised of three kinds of municipalities, which are run by councils – eight metropolitan municipalities, which are our big cities – 44 district municipalities, which co-ordinate local municipalities in a region and 207 local municipalities, which are towns and rural areas.
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The centre – located at the Tshwane Events Centre – gleamed with the IEC’s signature blue colours, as media and officials trickled in, waiting for the first set of results to appear on big screens.
Voting on Wednesday takes place from 07.00 to 19.00.
A number of issues were raised about voting stations running out of ballot papers, but IEC chief electoral officer Mosotho Moepya said extra ballots would be made available when this happened.
“It was only the ward candidate who was disqualified and the proportional representation is not affected”.
Police are on alert across the country with 2000 members of the SA National Defence Force assisting them to ensure the safety and security of those voting on Wednesday. However, no party regalia of any type is allowed for political party agents who are part of the elections process and ultimately sign off on a voting station’s count.
There were also four motor vehicle accidents involving election staff, with fortunately no serious injuries. “Police on scene were dealing with the incident”.
According to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), there are 107 wards in the metro – two more than in the 2011 local government poll.
“Telkom will provide a variety of ICT solutions to be sure that every point of the electoral chain, from the local voting station to the national results centre is connected to an efficient, reliable network that will validate and report on these important municipal election results”, Telkom said in a media statement.
This, as the voting day is 12 hours, beginning at 7am and closing at 7pm.
“The IEC says it is satisfied it has done everything in its power to prepare for these elections which are the largest yet undertaken in South Africa”, he said.
“It is illegal to prevent any voter from exercising their right to vote”.
“… Election day has been declared a public holiday… to free persons who could not otherwise be in a spot to do so [vote]”.
“We have entered the final push; Our structures and all our supporters are urged to ensure that we go door to door on the August 3 to encourage all our people to go out and cast their vote”, said Mantashe.
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Resident stand queue to make their vote during the Municipal Elections.
