Elderly in KZN recount excitement of first democratic vote in 1994

Elderly in KZN recount excitement of first democratic vote in 1994

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Elderly people from Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal remember the first democratic elections in 1994. 77-year-old Cynthia Nyembe and 62-year-old Thomas Lwenda say black people were excited to vote for the first time.

“In the shops, you were not allowed to fit. After 1994 you could go and fit in. It’s either you take it or when you say you were not allowed to fit actually. So I appreciate that because now it puts us more on the same level. We can never be on the same level, but in the eyes of God we are all the same,” says Nyembe.

However, amid the political violence in KwaZulu-Natal at the time, Lwenda did not vote due to fear.

“Yes, they were very excited. But you know, I don’t know if I was scared or something, you know it was a new thing, what’s gonna happen when I vote, whose gonna see me, and you know. And remember those days when there was political violence and so on. So that also scared me.”

The 80-year-old Santie Botha recounts the uncertainty among some white people about what was to follow. Some even stockpiling food.

“I think some were afraid and some were excited because people were uncertain. But I never stockpiled tinned food because I always say God is in charge no matter what.”

2024 Elections | Elderly cast special vote in Limpopo

eThekwini to provide water, sanitation at hotspots on election day

eThekwini to provide water, sanitation at hotspots on election day

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The eThekwini municipality has placed service delivery units on high alert for voting day on the 29th of May, to prevent the disruption of electricity and water supply to voting stations.

The Durban metro has the highest number of eligible voters in KwaZulu-Natal.

Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda says rapid response measures have been put in place should any problems arise.

Generators and chemical toilets will be dispatched to voting stations where they are lacking.

Municipal spokesperson Gugu Sisilana says there are measures in place to service areas with intermittent water supply. Water containers and static tanks have been sourced for voting stations in areas with water challenges.

“Water tankers will be allocated in the 5 regions across the municipality to supply water to voting stations and surrounding communities. Repairs of gravel roads leading to voting stations have been completed and an assessment will be conducted should there be heavy rains before election day,” says Sisilana.

 

DA heads to eThekwini metro in final push for votes

DA heads to eThekwini metro in final push for votes

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Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, John Steenhuisen, is visiting the Durban metro today as parties are ramping up their election campaigns.

With a week to go before the national and provincial elections, some analysts are saying the African National Congress (ANC) may be at risk of losing its outright majority in eThekwini.

Other parties have also been focusing their attention on the eThekwini metro in the last few weeks.

This is due to the metro’s large number of voters.

However, in the past two years, the municipality has also come under fire from opposition parties for service delivery issues in the aftermath of massive flood damage with the infrastructure still being repaired.

Steenhuisen will be visiting residents in Ntuzuma township and businesspeople in Reservoir Hills to discuss problems they are experiencing.

He will round off his visit to the metro with a community meeting in Phoenix.

The party took all five wards in this traditionally Indian area in the 2021 municipal elections while also beating the ANC in a by-election in Chatsworth a year ago.

However, the DA has been criticised for not condemning Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

VIDEO | DA making final push ahead of elections: 

 

APEMO calls for screening of foreign nationals

APEMO calls for screening of foreign nationals

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The leader of the African People’s Movement (APEMO), Vikizitha Mlotshwa, says his party wants foreign nationals to be screened before entering the country to ensure that only those with scarce skills are employed.

He was speaking at an election rally in a rural part of Bergville in the west of the province.

He says investment in small businesses like spaza shops should be left to South Africans.

APEMO is a splinter party from the National Freedom Party and was formed 2 months before the 2021 local government elections.

Residents decry the lack of service delivery

Hundreds of people crammed the community hall in the Emamfemfetheni area of Bergville.

The hall’s broken windows are but one sign of the poverty in the deep rural area in the foothills of the Drakensberg.

Even herds of cattle or goats are scarce in the area.

While homesteads have electricity, people only have pit toilets and water has to be fetched from boreholes or streams.

Thabani Zulu says when it rains, the gravel roads leading to homesteads become difficult to travel on.

“They make us a road, this main road going to Cathedral Peak there in the mountains for the hotel. But here, inside here in the location, you don’t have those roads. Even if you have those small roads, they make us those small roads, but it’s difficult. If it’s raining, you can’t travel. You can’t use those that road if it’s raining. You must travel, you must go to the main road if you want transport.”

Other residents, Nondumiso Sithole and Ntombifuthi Ndaba agree that poor roads, electricity and water are the main challenges people face in the area.

“I’m from the poorest rural part of this area…from the farms and we are in need of water and electricity. And another thing, we have irregular (power) cuts that (are) not connected to load shedding. We also have damaged power infrastructure which Eskom doesn’t repair.”

“Our votes will make a huge difference because we have full confidence in our leader, Mlotshwa. We don’t have proper roads. The last time when we had proper roads was through Mlotshwa when he was mayor before. The issue of water and electricity is a major concern, but we trust Mlotshwa that he will be up for the task.”

Job creation

Addressing people in the community hall, Mlotshwa says his party will create more job opportunities.

He wants the age limit for jobs in government’s Expanded Public Works Programme to be lifted from 35 to 59.

Mlotshwa says, “We need those with skills, (they) must be invited into South Africa. But don’t take those people who are coming here to stay because they tend to sell drugs to our children, and they tend to sell expired food. Our kids buy sweets, cakes and the stuff from them only to find in the end they get ill and die.”

Privatising electricity generation

Due to load shedding, APEMO wants electricity generation in the country to be privatised.

Mlotshwa says, “Because Eskom now is alone. So that is why if Eskom says today it’s dark, it will be dark. So therefore, we are proposing that other people must be given a chance to supply us with electricity so that…people are being disturbed, you know businesses are going down because of this poor supply.”

Party highlights

Mlotshwa says within 60 days of being formed, APEMO was able to secure nine seats in KwaZulu-Natal municipalities and one in Mpumalanga.

He says they are contesting the elections in KwaZulu-Natal and at national level.

The party also has cooperation agreements with Pan-Africanist parties, the African People’s Convention and United Africans Transformation, to bolster each other’s support at the polls.

VIDEO | African People’s Movement launches manifesto in Bergville:

IFP KZN Premier candidate slams police action against his motorcade

IFP KZN Premier candidate slams police action against his motorcade

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The Inkatha Freedom Party’s (IFP) KwaZulu-Natal Premier candidate, Thami Ntuli, says the action of police against his motorcade on Wednesday evening was an attempt to disrupt his election campaign.

Police and their eThekwini metro counterparts pulled over the motorcade and impounded blue-light vehicles on the N2.

Ntuli, who is also the Mayor of the King Cetshwayo District Council on the province’s north coast says more than 15 heavily armed officers searched his bodyguards.

He says, “Then they confiscated the protectors’ guns, those who are protecting me. They pickpocketed my bags, and then they gave an instruction for them to switch on the blue lights because the blue lights were not on. When they did that, they then said, ‘do you have a permit to drive a car with blue lights?’ In fact, we couldn’t understand what is it exactly they were looking for, whether it was the guns, whether it was pickpocketing the bags or the blue lights.”

VIDEO | IFP KZN Premier candidate pulled over by police, bodyguards disarmed:

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