Pretoria – The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) will today visit over a 100 000 homes to allow people to cast special votes.
The home visits are part of special votes which kicked off yesterday. Today, mostly the elderly and the physically disabled will be visited at home to cast their votes.
More than 200 000 South Africans had applied for special votes, which included members of the South African Police Service who will be on duty on voting day, voting station staff, media, political party agents as well as voters who are deployed from home for work reasons.
Among those casting their ballots yesterday was former president Nelson Mandela at his Houghton home.
Mandela is under medical supervision at home after being admitted to hospital in February with a respiratory infection.
Congratulating Mandela on casting his vote, President Jacob Zuma called on all South Africans to follow former president Mandela’s example and use their vote in the local government elections on Wednesday.
“The first president of the free and democratic South Africa has led by example. We must now learn from him as we always do and go out in our millions to vote,” Zuma said on Monday.
Former president Thabo Mbeki, who will be out of the country tomorrow, also voted yesterday, as well as Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma whose department will oversee and monitor department operations on Election Day.
The rest of the country, including President Zuma, who will cast his vote at Ntolwane Primary School in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, will go to polls on Wednesday.
The IEC has assured that all systems were in place and that voting stations would be ready on Wednesday morning. – BuaNews
