Voters at the University of Limpopo, outside Polokwane, only finished voting after 2am on Thursday morning.
Voters blamed the IEC, saying the officials arrived late and worked slowly.
A student at the campus told Scrolla.Africa that he believed the IEC’s slow pace was a delaying tactic, as the majority of voters were students who were not members of the ruling party.
“I arrived at the voting station at 6.30am and was number 11 in the queue. We waited for the IEC people to arrive and they only arrived around 7.20am.
“When they arrived, they prepared their station and only started to allow voters to cast their votes after 9am. We voted, but the lines were slow, and when we asked why the lines were not moving, they told us it was technical glitches,” he said.
The student added that tensions rose when, at 9pm, IEC officials wanted to send people home.
“We did not allow the officials to cut off the lines because the IEC ruled that anyone in the line by the time the voting was supposed to end must be allowed to vote.
“Even when they called the police, we were not intimidated. We explained nicely to the police the situation and everyone [in the queue] was eventually allowed to vote until the early hours of this morning,” he said.
Meanwhile, the university’s Student Representative Council (SRC) president, Khutso Mamabolo, said voters were frustrated by the long queues, waiting as long as six hours to cast their votes.
He said that the lines started moving faster after 11pm.
Simon Thobakgale, senior outreach officer at the IEC provincial office, said: “We had technical glitches, which were mainly caused by the voter’s management device, but it was later fixed, and everything started moving smoothly when the problems were fixed.
“Many students came in huge numbers close to the closing time, leaving our team with long queues. We, however, sent a troubleshooting team to help at the station, and everything was fine after that.”
Pictured above: Students in the voting queue at the University of Limpopo.
Image source: Supplied
