Beaufort West – With voting stations about to close in Beaufort West voters are still making their way to stations to make their mark.
The DA and ANC are duking it out to clinch a win that will determine which party has control over the municipality.
Voting stations opened at five of the districts that make up Ward 7 at 7am on Wednesday morning with residents already queuing to cast their ballots.
The by-election comes after the resignation of the ward’s councillor, Djorge Malooi who was also the municipality’s mayor earlier this year.
Vying for votes from the 4 131 registered voters in the key ward are the African National Congress’ Stanley Nkanyezi, the Democratic Alliance’s Japie van der Linde and the Economic Freedom Fighter’s Benjamin Faas.
The biggest voting station was the Beaufort West Primary in Hopeside where voters queued in their numbers to choose their preferred candidate.
“I am very excited to be here and make my mark. Beaufort West needs to be stable and that is not going to happen until we get a mayor,” said one of the voters.
Both DA and ANC leaders arrived early at the station, each camp eager for a good outcome.
ANC’s provincial Secretary, Faiez Jacobs says: “The ANC is very excited to be here, we are optimistic that we could take this municipality back.”
Western Cape Secretary Faiez Jacobs also arrives for #BeaufortWestElections hopeful that @MYANC regains power of municipality @WeekendArgus pic.twitter.com/MgCYc7Kf6z
— Tshego Lepule (@tshegofatsang) May 24, 2017 Former mayor, Truman Prince arrives at Beaufort West Primary School in high spirits confident of a win @WeekendArgus #BeaufortWestElections pic.twitter.com/rEhbU72vHk
— Tshego Lepule (@tshegofatsang) May 24, 2017
“The poverty levels are very high in this area and that is a concern for us, yes we want to win the municipality back but we want to make sure that we address the poverty levels experienced by our people.”
Equally optimistic is the DA’s interim leader, Bonginkosi Madikizela who says: “We are taking this ward, we are retaining it, we won it with a slight majority in August last year and we have worked very hard since the resignation of the ward councillor and mayor.”
“We want to build on that momentum so that we can retain the municipality as well because this is a very important municipality for the DA because we won it for the first time last year and just when we were starting to change the situation here, unfortunately the major resigned but we are happy with the work that we have done.”
Other smaller stations included one at Soetdoringsvlei Community Hall at the Karoo National Park where only 90 people were registered and two other stations situated in the farms on the outskirts of the town with a combined number of voters coming in at just under 200.
The second biggest voting district was in Merweville, about 150 kilometres away from Beaufort West with 947 registered voters. The station’s Presiding Officer, Collin Soldaat said by 3pm they had a little over 400 voters come in to cast their votes, with 81 having done so on Tuesday through special votes.
“Things have been running smoothly with people coming in steadily,” he explains.
Voting stations close at 9pm on Wednesday evening before each district begins tallying up the results.