Voting in the 2024 Elections got off to a slow start at Wierda Independent School in Centurion on Wednesday.
With the sun having just begun to rise at 7am, there were a handful of people that already gathered to wait in line in the chilly conditions with temperatures not yet above 10 degrees Celsius.
One man in his 70s came prepared with a camp chair, as he sat and waited with a steaming cup of coffee at hand.
The people gathered in the queue were a good representation of the SA public, with all races and ages waiting in line. One toddler sat next to his parents about 20m from the entrance to the station, as he played with his toy cars as his mother watched his every move.
Silver Polo to the rescue
By 7.10am a silver polo drove up to the entrance to the school in the cordoned off section for voters. It turned out the driver of the Polo was an IEC official and soon a team of voting staff joined him to collect boxes from his boot.
By 7.30am, the queue had not moved at all as no citizen had yet cast their vote at this voting station.
While the queue was slow to grow, it did lengthen steadily until it snaked around the block around 100 metres from the voting station.
A number of runners shuffled past on the road adjacent to the voting station, while one large group of cyclists also zoomed through the area at one stage.
The only political party with a clear presence at the station was the Democratic Alliance (DA). When asked why they were the only political party at the voting station, a senior official chimed in with the official party slogan that it was “the people’s chance to rescue SA.”