Tlokwe: The historic election in Municipality 405
Voting ran smoothly in Tlokwe on Wednesday in the only municipality where voters had to register their addresses in order to cast a vote.
The new regulations, ordered by the Constitutional Court, caused some delays but the majority of registered voters managed to make their mark with the day passing without any major incidents.
Residents of Potchefstroom and Ikageng came out in their numbers to cast their votes. One election tent collapsed due to strong winds while voters in ward 26 in Ikageng had to queue well into the night as voting was severely delayed due to residence registration challenges. But voters braved the icy wind to show South Africa what future elections will hold. The Constitutional Court gave the Independent Electoral Commission until 2018 to confirm the rest of the country’s addresses.
As the results are now being digested by IEC centres across the country, residents are waiting to hear who will be their local government leaders for the next five years.
Political analyst at the North West University Andre Duvenhage said, given the fact that this was the most hotly contested election since the dawn of democracy; he expects some disruptions in the aftermath of Wednesday’s vote.
According to Duvenhage, there is a lot of political energy in the country and it needs to be released at some point.
“I’m expecting, potentially, a relative unstable political environment in the post election phase,” he explained.
But the current mayor, now of both the Tlokwe region and Ventersdorp, Kgotso Khumalo, urged residents to respect the electoral process. He said, as was the case with the previous by-elections, there are systems and structures available to those who disagree with the outcome.
“In the event that they don’t find joy, then they go to the Constitutional Court. However it would be quite good if we could solve these things amicably between political parties for the benefit of peace, safety, security for our country and for our people,” he said during an interview at his home in Ikageng.
Khumalo also explained that while the name of the new Ventersdorp-Tlokwe municpality is open for public comment, the municipality is officially known as Municipality 405. As for the new name and the future of Tlokwe, that will be up to the new government.