Case of 10 people arrested for election-related violence postponed

The case of 10 people arrested following election-related violence at Bongani Community Hall in Douglas in the Northern Cape has been postponed to Tuesday.

The accused are charged with contravention of the Electoral Act.

This follows the destruction of 100 ballot papers during a vote counting session at Bongani Community Hall last week.

Unhappy political party supporters stormed a vote counting station following a dispute over ballot papers.

Election results are being withheld for a re-vote.

Cedric Lawrence from the Siyancuma Independent Forum and Dorothy Haas from Africa Mayibuye Movement welcome the re-run of the election.

Lawrence says, “We do welcome the re-vote because we believe that it won’t change the outcome of the elections because the people know what they want; they want change for their communities.”

“We welcome the revoting because we are very much aware, factually, that the process was not fair in Ward Three, and we called before the chaos happened. We called for a revote because we could not continue. We picked up and have factual evidence that there were too many ballot papers that could not be accounted for. Even after checking with the voters’ roll and the ballots issued, we are a bit sad that now this municipality will have to hold off a bit longer”, said Haas.