He was officiating in Durban during the final deployment of thousands of police officers to the province in the lead-up to the general elections on Wednesday.
KZN has been identified as one of the high-risk provinces in the run-up to and during these elections.
Mkhwanazi says police officers should serve the citizens well.
“I want to invite all of you to make sure that you obey every bit of training you received on how the IEC expects us to secure this election. We must respect our people, love them, respect the law, and obey it,” he said, adding they also had to respect their commanders and executive instructions given to them with diligence.”
Mkhwanazi meanwhile has reiterated the police’s role in safeguarding the integrity of the vote. This follows allegations of vote rigging at IEC storage sites in Chesterville and Hammersdale at the weekend.
In videos that circulated on social media, individuals are seen allegedly entering the warehouse without permission and filming unauthorised activities.
Mkhwanazi says that was unfortunate. “The unfortunate part is that the IEC is contemplating registering a case on that. Those political members might find themselves in trouble because they then interfered with that which they were not supposed to interfere with. The political parties took an oath and theirs was to make sure they report everything that is done,” he says.
2024 Elections | Briefing on KZN police’s state of readiness to maintain stability and order
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) is on Sunday expected to hold its Siyanqoba rally in Umhlathuze in Richards Bay, north of KwaZulu-Natal.
This comes as parties wrap up the final weekend of campaigning ahead of the May 29th polls. IFP President Velenkosini Hlabisa is set to address party members and supporters.
The IFP is one of the parties making up the multi-party charter. This includes the Democratic Alliance (DA), ActionSA and other smaller parties.
The party meanwhile, governed KZN until 2004 when leadership shifted to the African National Congress (ANC).
In the 2019 general elections, the IFP secured 3.38% of votes equating to 14 seats in the National Assembly.
This will also be the IFP’s first election without its founding leader and late president emeritus Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
Mangosuthu passed away on September in 2023.
Elections 2024 | IFP election campaign under way in KZN
KwaZulu-Natal’s Electoral Officer, Ntombifuthi Masinga, will today launch the provincial elections results operations centre at the Durban ICC.
Masinga, government and law enforcement officials are also expected to present a final briefing on the province’s state of readiness for next week’s polls.
KwaZulu-Natal has over 5.7 million people on the voters roll in this 7th general election.
The province lies only second to Gauteng in terms of this number.
The provincial results operations centre will not only house senior leaders from the province’s political parties, key government departments and media, but critically, the Electoral Commission’s data capturing team.
They will work from the close of voting stations to start counting process the across the province.
Volunteers
Meanwhile, the African National Congress says it has deployed almost 200 000 volunteers in a bid to reach all parts of the province.
UMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party leader and former President Jacob Zuma says the ANC is not applying its step aside rule consistently.
Zuma made the remark at a MK Party rally in KwaMashu north of Durban.
The step aside rule by the ANC requires members who are charged with corruption or other serious crimes to refrain from party and government activities.
In December last year, Zuma announced he would be backing the MK Party in this month’s general elections.
Zuma says the current ANC leadership has lost the party’s founding values.
“Then it started that some leaders were behaving in certain ways, thinking they were the owners of the organisation and not us as members of the organisation. They were creating all sorts of rules that we don’t know where they were coming from. They didn’t consult anyone to ask, this is what we are doing now. You would hear there is this new thing, you don’t know. Step aside, you don’t know why you should step aside. They tell people to step aside but they don’t step aside.”
“There are people who haven’t seen themselves on it. And there are questions on why they were left out. We are not doing this to go to parliament. We are doing this to make changes in the country. We can’t all of us go to parliament. There’s too many things to do besides parliament. But people are concerned (about) positions,” says Zuma.
He has also addressed the fallout between him and the founder of uMkhonto Wesizwe party, Jabulani Khumalo.
He says he was in fact behind the establishment of the party and not Khumalo.
“They are saying all sorts of bad things about me and I even asked myself will we even get this two thirds? People are now saying, ‘Zuma, why have you (release) me from my work?’ But they never ever asked me questions when I gave them positions. We are now left with two weeks. Black people will fail to take the very first opportunity to unite and take our country back.”
Elections 2024 | MK Party leader on a campaign trail in Durban:
