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Local Government Elections Update with Karinda Jagmohan · Drive with John Perlman

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Coverage underway. Let's get ourselves down to Etigwini down in
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Durban and say good afternoon to our EWN colleague, Karinda Jagmohan. Karinda,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: very good afternoon to you. Update, first of all, where
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: are you now?
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Good afternoon, John. I'm actually in Durban, close to the
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Addington voting station, where I actually see quite a few
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: police vehicles and two army vehicles They're just on standby,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: not doing much. But, of course, we know KZN has
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: a history of some violence, although no major issues reported today.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you're in Addington, which I assume is in
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the area where the famous Addington Hospital is. What's your
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: sense been of the levels of enthusiasm for the election today?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I know you've been wandering around different parts of Etigwini.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Certainly. Well, in some cases, residents were excited to vote.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: excited to exercise their democratic right to vote. But in
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: other cases, especially in areas where there have been historic
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: levels of poor service delivery or just services failing, residents
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: not so much willing to go to the ballot boxes.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: And in this case as well, we understand, you know,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: more than 600,000 people have voted so far. That's just
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: at the midday mark when the IEC and KZN updated us.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: That's still quite low voter turnout compared to the over
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: 2 million people that were registered to vote, at least
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: in Etikrini alone.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: In terms then of the, there was an issue, and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've managed to have a chat
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: to the IEC, but voting materials stolen in Itagwini last night,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: issues around the stamp also being stolen. How are they
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: planning to mitigate that? I mean, are stamps standard? What
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: is the IEC saying? We will chat to them later
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: and obviously get their perspective, but I'm just wondering if
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: you've picked up anything on that.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: This was quite a critical case. This happened in Ward
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: 2 in Umiameni Secondary School, so just on the outskirts
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: of Itikwini. And what happened were unmarked ballots, unused ballots
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: were stolen, as well as a security stamp, which is
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: a critical tool because this has a certain code that
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: authorizes the ballot for today in the certain voting district
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: that it should be used in. So when the stamp
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: was stolen, the IEC said that they issued a new
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: one specifically for that voting station. However, the PR ballot,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: which might be the same for the Metro at least,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: their concern is that they need to be wary of
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: the stamps now on the PR ballot. So they have
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: asked their IEC staff as well as political party agents to,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: when the vote counting starts, to be wary of the
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: stamp code. So it's not just about checking, oh, well,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: here's the stamp. It's about making sure that the stamp
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: is the correct code that was issued for use today.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: The IEC, essentially, the day before the election, will have
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: a sealed security pact, and that stamp, very few people
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: will know the code of that stamp. So that's one
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: sort of security aspect. But of course, many questions to
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: be asked. We do understand that the IEC staff from
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: that voting station, they've been relieved from their duties and
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: police are investigating the matter. And then the other part
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: of it is we hear that earlier this week, some
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: party members from the MKP allegedly interfered or rather stormed
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: into a voting station in Marion Hill. The party has
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: not directly commented on the matter. The IEC has raised
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: the issue. So their concern as well about the vote
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: counting in that specific ward. That's Ward 20 and now
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: in Ward 2. Another aspect is that some voting stations
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: opened quite late. And we understand in Uzumbe, that's where
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I was yesterday, but more inland, two voting stations opened
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: quite late because the roads were not accessible. The army
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: had to come in and assist there because of inclement weather.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: And lastly, just speaking about inclement weather, we hear that
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: there's severe weather set for the KZN Midlands. So the
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: IEC is also urging people who are living there to
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: go and vote as urgently as possible.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Lots of issues to cover there.