SA voters hopeful after Obama

Verashni Pillay

Pretoria - Millions of South Africans flocked to voter registration stations at the weekend, many buoyed by Barack Obama's success in the US election, Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) spokesperson Kate Bapela said.

"The weekend went very, very well," she said, adding that at the last count 3.6 million people had visited the stations to register, change their address or check if they were registered.

Full numbers and results would be released on Wednesday.

"The US elections had a positive impact on the registrations for South Africa," Bapela told News24. "Immediately after the announcement of Barack Obama as the president elect for America there was already quite a positive mood around the country."

She said IEC chairperson Brigalia Bam had been especially impressed with the turnout of young people at the some 19 000 stations around the country.

Excited and inspired

Newspaper reports quoted young men and women who were excited about the change in the political landscape after the ANC split, while others were inspired by Obama's message of hope and his improbable rise to power.

Over 1 700 mostly young South Africans on social networking site Facebook joined a group encouraging people to vote.

"Only 20% of the YOUTH is registered to vote! DO YOU REALISE WHAT DIFFERENCE WE CAN MAKE IF WE ALL WENT VOTING?????!!!!!!!!!! DO IT! GET IN THERE!" said Jacobus Rabie.

Julie Coetzee wrote: "We got up to a little Guerrilla action after The Sunday Times scattered negativity all around with their headline: TUTU: I WONT VOTE. So in PE we placed an underground poster campaign of headlines all over lampposts saying: WE DONT GIVE A TUTU, WE'RE VOTING ANYWAY!"

Meanwhile the IEC were working hard to ensure their website, call centre and SMS facility could withstand thousands of enquiries after technical problems over the weekend.

"It's fine now but the lesson is we're going to have to spend some maximum time optimising it to ensure that at the next event it doesn't drop us like it did over the weekend," said Bapela.

Browser problems

The IEC also had a problem with cross-browser compatibility. The site could only be accessed using Microsoft Explorer but Bapela said plans were under way to change that.

On Friday, before the registration weekend, there were 20 129 323 South Africans registered to vote. Bapela said the IEC was hoping to increase this number by two million before the next election.

"It will certainly change," she said. "We are looking forward to that change."

Anyone who did not register could visit a Municipal Electoral Office during regular office hours to do so.

There were reports of tension at stations in problem areas Khutsong, Matatiele and Moutse, but Bapela said registration went ahead in these areas.

- News24