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South Africa elections 2024: Can ANC overcome challenge from Zuma, DA, EFF and others? - BBC News South Africa elections 2024: Can ANC overcome challenge from Zuma, DA, EFF and others? - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Farouk ChothiaFarouk Chothia
BBC News, JohannesburgBBC News, Johannesburg
At the height of the racist system of apartheid, only white people could sit on the benches of Joubert Park in Johannesburg. Several voters at the Joubert Park polling station in Johannesburg have been complaining that they have been unable to vote because they came up on the voters' roll as dead.
Today only black people are sitting here, relaxing after voting in the marquees that have been set up for the election. But the election commission’s area manager, Charlotte Hlongwane, denies they have been disenfranchised.
It is a reminder of how South Africa has changed in the 30 years since the country’s last white ruler, FW de Klerk, handed power to Nelson Mandela. She tells me that these people had “fake” ID books, and the commission’s system - which is linked to that of the Home Affairs department - picked this up.
“Those days of apartheid are over. They will never come back. Now we are all equal,” Simon Mohale tells me. She says voting is now going smoothly unlike early in the morning when there was a “network problem”, forcing election staff to do everything manually.
Today I did not see a single white voter at the polling station here. The scanners need to connect to the internet to verify the IDs, but if they cannot do so the physical voters' roll is on hand.
Almost all of them moved out of the area when apartheid collapsed while black people - who previously could not live here - moved in.
Mohale says:
White people are still welcome here. We are one.”
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