2009 Election: Get registered!

This is your chance to make a difference. People are so disillusioned with the ANC that coupled with the potential split means the turnout will be low in May 2009. Make it count!

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IFP: Voter registrations for the 2009 elections is happening too slowly, the Inkatha Freedom Party said in Stanger.

"I have been particularly alarmed by the slow pace of registration of new voters by the IEC, reportedly by only 3000 a month," said party president Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the launch of the IFP's national voter registration campaign in Kwa-Dukuza in Stanger.

"If the Commission fails to radically increase the number of new voter registrations, KwaZulu-Natal is set to record the lowest level of voter participation since the advent of democracy in 2009."

Buthelezi said the Independent Electoral Commission needed to do more to add new voters to the roll, but that political parties like the IFP could also conduct registration drives.

"We particularly need to mobilise our young people who will be turning 18 and therefore qualifying to vote for the first time to go and register."

Buthelezi said the forthcoming elections were critical to SA's future.

"While a lot has been achieved since the advent of democracy, there is much more that still needs to be done, especially in our rural areas," he said.

Buthelezi said the upcoming elections were an opportunity for voters to choose a government best equipped to tackle the challenges the country faced.

"If we are to fix what is broken about the way we are governed, we must ensure that all of us who are eligible are actually registered to vote.

"There is no reason why we should not register or check our registration for the next election," he said.

UDM: Holomisa: Parties must get together
The leaders of the African National Congress have to accept that their party has finally split, United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa said.

“The new ANC leadership need to swallow their pride and accept that the hour has arrived,” he said in the text of a speech to be delivered in George at a ceremony welcoming new UDM members.

“The ANC of yesteryear, the much-vaunted ‘broad church’, is now split into two.”

His remarks come amid persistent reports that disgruntled members of the ruling party are planning to break away and establish a new political formation.

Holomisa said it might be wise after next year’s general election for all parties and South Africans interested in changing the political landscape to meet “and begin the discussion of how we can compete as an alternative government in the 2014 elections”.

“In the meantime, there would be no harm for us to talk after the election about forming coalition governments wherever our combined support outstrips the ANC,” he said.

South Africa does not deserve a one-party state, nor to be governed by “ANC puppets controlled by communists who don’t even have the guts to participate in elections”, he added.