Councillors and officials at the Msunduzi Municipality have been told that some residents in KwaZulu-Natal, including the Umgungundlovu District Municipality, are deregistering as voters and South Africans in exchange for bribes from unidentified people.
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC)’s Umngungudlovu District Manager, Khulekani Mdadane, revealed this ahead of Msunduzi Mayor, Mzimkhulu Thebolla, delivering the city’s annual budget on Wednesday.
Mdadane did not say who stood to benefit by bribing South Africans to deregister as voters and abandon their citizenship.
“We are worried that we are currently inundated with a number of people who are visiting our office intending to deregister or wanting to be removed from the voters roll,” said Mdadane.
He said this was flying in the face of the IEC’s mandate of maintaining the voters roll and encouraging young people who have turned 16 to register.
“Daily, we are receiving one, two, or three voters (who want to deregister), which has raised serious worries for the IEC.
“It is not only this district, I am told that it is happening in other districts in this province of KwaZulu-Natal,” said Mdadane.
He said the IEC had conducted an investigation to establish what was happening and established that voters were being misled and promised money.
“They are being promised a lump sum of money, and they are told that they have to deregister with the IEC, and step two is to deregister with the Home Affairs, which seriously worries us because the moment you deregister with the Home Affairs, it means you are no longer a citizen of this country.
“I made this presentation to amakhosi at the beginning of this year because we are really worried,” said Mdadane.
He said councillors, as members of various political parties, had for years played their role in encouraging voters to register with the IEC.
“Now you need to be aware that, as much as we have a duty, you have a duty now to discourage people from deregistering as voters.”
He said since the country’s law allowed people to deregister as voters, “so when they visit the office, we have no option but to adhere to their call if they want to deregister”.
“So, two or three people a day is not a small number, so the numbers are increasing daily,” said Mdadane.
He said the local IEC office did not have the power to deregister voters.
“We interrogate a person, and with those reasons and ID copy that a person needs to provide to the office, we send that to the national office, which is the one that has the power to deregister a person from the voters roll.
“They are doing exactly that, and I am glad that the national office is now realising this and is also worried that the number of deregistrations in KZN is increasing daily,” he said.
Mdadane was hoping the IEC national leaders would take the matter to the national legislature.
Commenting on this, Thebolla, who is the ANC chairperson in the region, said this required the attention of the National Assembly “because it is a crime to encourage people to register”.
“It seems like there are people who want to disrupt voting patterns in South Africa.
“Please advise them of their rights to be voters in South Africa, the rights that we fought for, for so many years, for people to acquire.
“Please advise them before you deregister them because this is a very serious crime to mislead people in our country,” said Thebolla.
