24 Oct 2014

Eager to be the first one in the queue, a voter in Kasane placed a stone at a polling station a night before to book a space to cast his vote before everyone else.

However, when he arrived just after 5am he was the second in the queue and only managed to cast his vote after 7am as voting got off to a good start this morning in most polling stations in Kasane.

At Plateau Primary School queues formed way before polling stations were officially opened. At around 6am, there was an estimated 200 people already waiting in the queue to cast their votes.

Kasane Plateau has three polling stations namely Plateau Primary School A, Plateau Primary B and Plateau Kgotla. A combined1 677 voters  have registered in these polling stations.

At Kasane Primary which falls under Kasane Central, voting started at 6:30am.

Another polling station still under the same ward, Habitat offices, there were long queues as voting started just after 7am. The presiding officer, Mr Keronang Lefatshe, explained that voting started late because the candidates’ names and party symbols were not displayed due to miscommunication.

Principal elections officer for the area, Mr Ntoloki Mothobi, however, explained that displaying of candidates names and party symbols at polling stations was purely for administrative purposes and should not delay the voting process.

At Chobe junior school, voting also started late at 6:50am due to the same problem. By the time BOPA arrived just after 8am, voting was already underway with 11 people having voted. The station has only 60 registered voters and falls under the Old Kazungula-Lesoma area. There were no queues at all.

Voting is underway in Chobe constituency which has a total number of 8 957 registered people in seven polling districts.Ends