Voters turned away by long queues as Zibi warns station changes will keep people home

Voters queued, waited and in some places turned back on Wednesday as South Africans cast ballots in the 2026 local government elections, and Rise Mzansi leader and MP Songezo Zibi used the day to question why so many people were sent to vote away from where they registered.

As Sunday World reported on 4 November, Zibi raised concerns about voting station allocations and long queues, warning that the logistics could discourage people from casting their ballots at all.

In a post on X that day, Zibi set out his own case. He said there is a voting station outside his gate where he has voted since 2006, but that this time he was voting 1km from where he normally does. His son, who lives with him, was voting 5km away. “I foresee a lot of people just staying at home as a result,” he wrote.

He also described the scene at Heuwelsig Estate in Centurion, where a voting tent put up outside the entrance stood empty because most residents of the estate were registered elsewhere. At those other stations, he said, the queues were long enough that people were turning back. “Imagine people with no cars,” he wrote.

His son was a first-time voter, Zibi said, and had registered in front of their complex at the final registration weekend, not at the station where he was now required to vote. Zibi rejected the idea that his position as a politician answers the point. He said his own station was still five minutes away, and asked what happens to people with no cars who must travel 5km.

The question he raises is a practical one for a country where many voters depend on public transport, lifts or walking to reach a polling station. A relocation of even a few kilometres changes the cost and the time of voting, and on a working day that can decide whether somebody votes at all.

Sunday World also reported that in the Eastern Cape, Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality executive mayor Princess Faku, an ANC representative, was reportedly met with resistance from residents at a Gonubie voting station after allegedly trying to skip the queue, and that residents insisted she wait her turn with everyone else. The Enquirer has not independently verified that account.

Both episodes point at the same expectation on election day: that the process should be equal and reachable, whether the voter is an MP, a mayor or somebody with no transport at all.

The elections will seat municipal representatives responsible for local governance and service delivery for the next five years.