Eighteen election cases in KwaZulu-Natal and seven arrests, as a sergeant is pulled from a Donnybrook voting station over party posters

KwaZulu-Natal police have recorded 18 election-related criminal cases in the province and made seven arrests, the province’s acting police commissioner says.

The cases include alleged misconduct by a police officer. A sergeant deployed at a voting station in the Mphithini area of Donnybrook was removed from election-related duties after arriving at the station in a vehicle displaying political party posters, and could face internal disciplinary proceedings over the alleged unprofessional conduct.

Acting Provincial Commissioner Major General Phumelele Makoba says internal investigations are under way into the reported incidents, and that unprofessional conduct by police officers will not be tolerated. As eNCA reported on 5 November, the province had by then recorded the 18 cases and seven arrests.

For a voter in KwaZulu-Natal, the two figures measure different things. The 18 are criminal cases opened in connection with the election period. The seven are the arrests made so far across those cases. Neither number is a conviction, and the police statement does not set out what the individual cases involve, where in the province they arose, or what charges any of the seven arrested people face.

The sergeant’s case sits in a separate lane. A disciplinary process is the police’s own internal mechanism, not a criminal prosecution, and the statement records that she could face proceedings rather than that any have been concluded. She has been taken off election work.

The Mphithini voting station is in Donnybrook, in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands inland of Durban. A police officer arriving at a voting station in a vehicle carrying party posters goes to the appearance of the police’s neutrality on election day, which is why the force treats it as a conduct question rather than only a deployment one.

The statement does not say whether the 18 cases include the sergeant’s matter, nor whether any of the seven arrests arise from it. It also does not identify the political party whose posters were on the vehicle.

The Enquirer has asked the office of the acting provincial commissioner for the breakdown of the 18 cases, the charges faced by the seven arrested, and the status of the internal investigation, and will report the answer when it comes.