Gauteng presiding officers stage protest

The IEC's Gauteng results centre saw protest action by presiding officers - but now it is all systems go, an IEC official says.

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Johannesburg - Order has been restored to the IEC's Gauteng results centre after protest action by presiding officers threatened the counting process early on Thursday.

Presiding officers from several voting stations protested at the centre and staged a walkout just before 6am.

This was after they complained about having to stand in a queue for a very long time while waiting for results from their voting stations to be counted.

The Democratic Alliance's Khume Ramulifho, who witnessed the commotion, said the procedure at the election centre was that presiding officers waited in queues for the wards they were presiding over to be called. From there, their votes are counted and then they could leave. However, some felt that they had been in the queue for a long time.

"They were complaining that transport had not been arranged for them to take the ballot boxes to the results’ centre. They also said they were cold and there was no heater at the centre and that they had not even been given coffee or tea.

"They then started chanting and, instead of following the procedure about handing over the results, they just threw the results on the floor and left. The IEC guys had to pick those ballots and put them in a box and are busy counting them now," he said.

Ramulifho said the presiding officers were also complaining that they had to go to work and no one was attending to them. From there they walked out..

However, the IEC's Terry Tselane denied that some of the presiding officers staged a walkout.

"They did not stage a walkout, it was a protest because they had been waiting for a long time."

He said the presiding officers were frustrated because some had not slept for two days and this was a ‘big operation’.

Tselane said the presiding officers thought they would just submit the results and leave.

"So they got impatient with the process of auditing and making sure the results were received and everything accounted for. That process was taking a bit longer. We advised them to go home and rest and if there are inconsistencies we would call them to account. But now it's all systems go and the results are currently being counted," he said.

botho.molosanke@inl.co.za

Elections Bureau