Durban - As the Independent Electoral Commission readies for the 2016 local government elections expected to take place in May, it has confirmed that voter registration will take place on the weekend of February 6 and 7.
KwaZulu-Natal has 5.1 million voters on the roll, but many will have to re-register after the demarcation process reduced the number of municipalities to 54, including 43 local, 10 district and one metropolitan municipality across the province.
IEC KZN head, Mawethu Mosery, was at Independent Newspapers in Durban on Monday to brief journalists on the coming elections.
He said seven municipalities - Hlabisa, Ntambanana, Vulamehlo, Ezinqolweni, Kwa Sani, uMtshezi and iNdaka had merged with other municipalities.
Limpopo and the Eastern Cape were still concluding their demarcation processes.
Mosery said the date for local government elections rested with Co-operative Governance Minister, Pravin Gordhan, and would be announced in due course.
He said the IEC would visit municipalities and wards where demarcation had affected the voters roll next month.
“In some voting stations you will find the roll has been split between two wards and names may no longer appear although you voted before, so it is best to re-register.”
Mosery said the IEC would target young and first-time voters to get them to register.
South Africans abroad and people outside their voting districts during the elections would not be eligible to vote, he said.
However special votes were open to everyone, but applications had to be lodged in person at IEC offices. Special voters would vote a day or two before election day.
University students could vote in their home districts or within municipal wards where they were staying for their studies.
Mosery said people who lived away from where they grew up, given that their families still owned their homestead, could choose to vote there or in the area where they now resided.
The provincial voters roll, adapted from last year’s general elections, showed that of KZN’s 5.1 million voters - 2.9 million were women, but there were only 575 women councillors compared with the 1 188 seats that went to men across the province.
The IEC said that of the country’s 9 087 councillors, KZN had the most with 1 763, while the Eastern Cape had 1 513, Limpopo 1 171, Gauteng 1 050 and Mpumalanga 868.
Daily News
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