Voting brisk at S.A embassies on April 15 - pictures…

 

April 15 2009 –  Embassies at Dubai, London and in Australia report long queues of South Africans lining up to vote today.  This picture above was taken by voter Christine Hewitson.  Clearly, these South African expats are very keen to cast their votes in the national elections of their home country: many were already waiting at dawn to wait for the London embassy doors to open up.

Picture at Dubai embassy: Andrew Hunter – the South Africans were lined up all around the block, waiting to vote on April 15. (News24)

South Africa’s Independent’ Electoral Commission  approved less than 16,300 applications for these ’ special votes’ from among the 1,2-million South African expats abroad, with special polling stations at foreign embassies opened up after a Pretoria High Court judge had ordered the IEC to do so most urgently.

Picture: London, Malcolm Teare. News 24 reader.

More than 80,000 expats had apparently applied to vote at the Freedom Front Party’s office alone, but, said this  party, the SA government could not accommodate them all this year “because they live too far away from government legations to be able to cast their votes…”

There had been just a few weeks time in which to apply for these ‘special votes’ after the Pretoria High Court had found that the IEC’s rules barring the vast majority of expats from voting, had been unconstitutional. The court ordered the Independent Electoral commission to set up foreign polling stations for all the country’s expats and register them for special votes at once. The ANC-ruled government had opposed this application, but the Constitutional Court confirmed that the Pretoria High Court had been correct.

Picture: London-based expat Pieter Kruger took this picture outside the embassy at dawn, when a crowd was already waiting patiently on April 15 to cast their votes. A total of 7,460 people in London were approved and would be allowed to cast their votes;  1,228 in Canberra, 889 in Dubai, and smaller numbers at other voting points overseas such as some 350 in The Hague, The Netherlands.

--------------------------------

ANC-opposition:

The entire matter was set into motion by the Freedom Front Plus opposition party on behalf of Willem Richter, pictured, a Pretoria school teacher working in the United Kingdom; followed by a seperate law suit from the Inkatha Freedom Party, the Democratic Alliance, the political A-Party  lobby group and a combined group of South African voters living overseas.

The Pretoria High Court ruled that the country's Electoral Act ‘s barring of foreign South African citizens was unconstitutional and therefore invalid because it was denying voting facilities to these expats.

And even before the Constitutional Court could confirm the Pretoria High Court ruling, the  election date was hurriedly called by the country’s acting-ANC president -- before the judgment was even confirmed.  This gave opposition political parties and the IEC far too little time to help organise the foreign electorate’s polling stations… This picture of the London situation was taken by Larry Sher and sent to News 24.com

Wait until next time!

  Early morning wait for embassy to open its doors in Dubai by Magriet Fick – Beeld reader

Freedom Front Plus parliamentarian Willie Spies, who as a lawyer had launched these law suits, said they were disappointed that the many tens of thousands of South Africans who live in cities such as Perth, Sydney and Auckland, in Australia, will not be able to vote this time.

 

Picture of Hong Kong embassy voting by Albert Fullard

However, Spies added that the FF+ will this forthcoming term in parliament step up their campaign to make it easier for South Africans all over the world to cast their votes. "Our expectation is that the overseas votes will, in future, play a bigger role in the election results," Spies said.

Jennifer Smit, London embassy. Two hour wait but worth it…

• http://www.news24.com/News24/Elections/News/0,,2-2478-2479_2496217,00.html
• http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=6&art_id=nw20090415110654261C798834

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Only 16,300 expats allowed to vote on April 22…

Out of 1,2-million expatriate South Africans…

 

  Picture: Willem Richter, SA expat teacher who launched the successful Pretoria High Court case demanding equal voting rights for South Africans abroad…

Cape Town -  April 3 2009 – South Africa’s ‘Independent’ Electoral Commission has approved only 16,300 applications for special votes for South Africans abroad this election. More than 80,000 expat voters had applied to vote with the Freedom Front Party’s office alone, but the SA government can’t accommodate them because they live too far away from government legations to be able to cast their votes…

The IEC released these truly pathetic figures this week.

A total of 7,460 people in London had been approved and would be allowed to cast their votes;  1,228 in Canberra and 889 in Dubai.

• Smaller numbers of people will also be able vote at other voting points overseas.

This follows orders by the South African Constitutional Court and the Pretoria High Court that registered voters living overseas can vote for the National Assembly inthe April 22, 2009 election in South Africa.

However there is a discrepancy in the number of voters who were approved, and the number who had applied: o On March 27 2009, the Freedom Front Plus had announced that 80,000 expats had informed the IEC that ‘they will be casting their votes overseas during the forthcoming elections, according to Dr. Corné Mulder, Chief Whip of the FF Plus.

“The FF Plus is a party which does not shy away from standing up for South Africans’ rights which is trampled by the ANC government. The 80,000 South Africans who have already indicated that they want to vote on the 15th April can do this as a result of the actions of the FF Plus.

Dr Mulder said they were swamped by complaints of South Africans who have to travel long distances of up to 4,000 km to get to South African missions in the various overseas countries in which they reside.

• “The party will continue to ensure that all South Africans who find themselves abroad during the general elections which will be held in 2014, will be able to register overseas and that there will be sufficient numbers of voting points abroad for the election. The right to vote is an inalienable right which can not be determined by the ANC government”, said Dr. Mulder. DR. CORNÉ MULDER, Contact no.: 083 626 1497 http://www.vryheidsfront.co.za/

ANC-opposition:

It must be noted here for the official record that this so-called ‘independent’ electoral commission, (which is run by ANC-members) and the ANC-regime have  both actively opposed these court applications all the way to the Constitutional Court, and were subsequently ordered to pay all the costs for the applicants i.e. the taxpayer has to fork over huge amounts of legal costs just to fight for their voting rights in South Africa.

• It must also be noted that many of the 1,2-million expats send home huge amounts of money to support their relatives still in South Africa. Thus the country’s tax-coffers also benefit from having so many South Africans working abroad…

The entire matter was set into motion by the Freedom Front Plus opposition party on behalf of Willem Richter, a Pretoria school teacher working in the United Kingdom; as well as by  the Inkatha Freedom Party, the Democratic Alliance, the political A-Party  lobby group and a group of South African voters living overseas.

The Pretoria High Court had ruled that the country's Electoral Act was unconstitutional and therefore invalid because it was denying voting facilities to expats.

• And the  election date was hurriedly called by the country’s acting-ANC president -- before the judgment was even confirmed by the Constitutional Court, thus giving political parties and the IEC far too little time to help organise the foreign electorate’s polling stations…

Freedom Front Plus parliamentarian Willie Spies, who as a lawyer launched the law suits, said they were disappointed that the many tens of thousands of South Africans who live in cities such as Perth, Sydney and Auckland, in Australia, will not be able to vote.

• "This is due to the long distances to the capital cities where embassies and consulates are situated. The Department of Foreign Affairs was not able to equip all its missions across the globe as voting points. "Cities such as Perth, Sydney and Auckland only have honorary consulates and not fully accredited South African consulates," Spies said.
• (My comment: the idea of dispatching voting buses has probably not yet occurred to the IDP – but next time, with the Constitutional Court order in hand, they won’t be able to use the excuse of not having enough organising time…)

Spies added that the FF+ will this forthcoming term in parliament step up their campaign to make it easier for South Africans all over the world to cast their votes.

"Our expectation is that the overseas votes will, in future, play a bigger role in the election results," Spies said.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Elections/News/0,,2-2478-2479_2496217,00.html

ANC is apartheid incarnate, warns cleric Allan Boesak

 

■ Adriana Stuijt

Theology professor Allan Boesak of South Africa, the fiery liberation cleric and former anti-apartheid campaigner, has resigned his lifelong membership of the African National Congress party - accusing the ruling party of being 'apartheid incarnate'.

Boesak, see video interview above, joined the breakaway Congress of the People party and now stands as COPE 's candidate for the Western Cape premiership in the forthcoming April 22 national election.

In his usual fierce style, speaking to a large crowd in Beaufort West north of Cape Town, the charismatic Boesak accused his old party of 'not delivering most South Africans out of the social inequity of apartheid."

This lifelong civil rights campaigner has fought against apartheid all his life. The Dutch Reformed Church theologian was working as a student-pastor at the University of the Western Cape in Bellville South near Cape Town during apartheid, and lived under a constant cloud of fear and distrust with his family, watched night and day by the security forces.

Outspoken:
Boesak also is known for his popularity among the Western Cape ‘s rural voters, and is known internationally as a South African apartheid-campaigner - even when his name was sullied by a very public divorce, and a criminal case in which he was found guilty of stealing church funds. His many faithful supporters have always believed that these charges for which he was imprisoned, had been orchestrated by his political opponents.
He is concentrating his campaign on rural voters in the Western Cape, where he has a large following.

“ANC is the old apartheid-regime incarnate”
Boesak said on Saturday in a speech at a COPE meeting in Beaufort West, north of Cape Town, that the African National Congress "has failed the majority of our people and have become the old regime incarnate."

This week, Boesak accused the ANC of abandoning its revered Freedom Charter -- the platform on which the ANC had gained overwhelming voters' support and hegemony of South Africa in the 1994 national elections.

The Freedom Charter is characterized by its opening demand; "The People Shall Govern!" Boesak noted - adding that ''the Freedom Charter was a promissory note to all South Africans that one day all the people of our country would live together, work together and prosper together.

"The ANC however has failed the people and remains ignorant of the mandate set by the people more than half a century ago."

Boesak accused the ANC of not providing for human rights such as delivering running water or housing to vulnerable communities while their own elite have benefited.

"The ANC's laws of Black Economic Empowerment and affirmative action have done little more than enrich just a handful of their own hangers-on," he said.

The most basic human right is water, food, and rights to a job
Boesak also took a swipe at the opposition Democratic Alliance. "When the DA talks about human rights, they talk about freedom of speech and a free media - very relevant, but surely missing the point. The most basic human right is running water, food on the table and the opportunity to earn an income," said Boesak