Special voting begins in South Africa ahead of May 29 polls

By Hassan Isilow

Special voting began in South Africa on Monday for 1.6 million people who applied to vote early due to special needs ahead of the May 29 election day.

According to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), polling stations opened at 9 a.m. for 1 million voters, while trained electoral officials will visit the homes of 600,000 people who will cast their votes from home. Special voting will end on Tuesday. South Africans in the diaspora voted last week.

According to South African law, one can apply for permission to cast a special ballot if the person is physically infirm, disabled, pregnant or the person cannot vote at their registered polling station on election day.

South Africa will hold national and provincial elections on Wednesday which experts believe will be the tightest since the first post-apartheid democratic elections of 1994.

There are over 27 million registered voters in the country of some 62 million people. They will be voting for lawmakers of provincial legislatures and 400 members of parliament, known as the National Assembly.

The country subscribes to the proportional representation system where voters choose parties and they get seats in the parliament. The lawmakers then elect a president.

Seventy political parties are in the running, with the major ones being the African National Congress (ANC), the opposition Democratic Alliance, and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party.

It is also the first time in the country's history that the former president of the ANC which has ruled South Africa since attaining democracy in 1994 will be leading an opposition party to challenge his former political party. Jacob Zuma, 82, a former ANC leader who served for two terms, is backing the Umkonto We sizwe political (MK) party which is seen as a threat to the late Nelson Mandela’s party.