South Africans abroad will have a chance to cast their ballot on May 17 and 18 before the national and provincial elections on May 29.
The Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) says voting abroad will take place across 111 foreign missions. SA citizens in Algiers, Amman, Cairo, Kuwait City, Jeddah, Ramallah, Riyadh and Tehran will vote on Friday. Voting at the rest of the missions will take place on Saturday with voting stations open from 7am to 7pm.
Most registered SA voters are located in London (24,535), followed by The Hague (6,659), Canberra (3,674) and Dubai (3,266).
“After the voting process, cast national compensatory ballots will be transported through a source channel back to the national office of the Electoral Commission for counting. The votes will be counted in the presence of agents [representing] contestants,” the IEC says.
Campaigning by political parties continues this week as the election date draws near. After a week in KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC’s top brass is expected to descend on Gauteng this week. For the first time in more than 30 years the ANC faces a real chance of failing to win a majority, and voter turnout is central to its election campaign.
DA leader John Steenhuisen will continue campaigning with rallies scheduled in Gauteng, the Free State and the Western Cape.
EFF leader Julius Malema is expected to continue criss-crossing the country, holding community meetings to mobilise voters. He held 17 separate community meetings in Mpumalanga, the Northern Cape, the Free State and the North West last week.
Political newcomer Rize Msansi will on Sunday hold its final election rally at the Ruimsig Stadium in Johannesburg.
uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) will hold its manifesto rally at the Orlando Stadium on Saturday, when the party is expected to formally announce its policy positions.
MK burst onto the political scene in December after former president Jacob Zuma announced his support for the party instead of the ANC. It has so far relied on mini rallies and door-to-door campaigns to garner support.
The party’s manifesto, released on its website in April, proposes nationalising the country’s natural resources and the SA Reserve Bank, and repealing Eskom’s alternative energy agreements with independent power producers.
Meanwhile, Zuma will be back at the high court in Pietermaritzburg with French arms company Thales on Thursday. Zuma is facing many counts of corruption as well as racketeering, fraud, tax evasion and money-laundering. Some of the charges relate to bribes he is alleged to have taken from Thales to provide political protection for an arms deal to the value of more than $1bn signed by the government in 1999.
The legal battle for the AmaZulu royal throne is scheduled to be heard in the high court in Pietermaritzburg over two days from Thursday. Prince Mbonisi seeks to have the state halt financial support of his nephew King Misuzulu kaZwelithini pending the finalisation of his bid to have the king dethroned.
The National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces will wrap up their work on Thursday.
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