Some 1.7 million South Africans flocked to over 23,000 registration stations to register at the weekend for the forthcoming local government elections set for 1 November, APA learnt on Tuesday.
Chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said some 23,151 registration stations were open on Saturday and Sunday, and among those who visited the centres were 433,198 first-time voters.
This accounted for about 25 percent of the total registered voters, Mamabolo told the media in Pretoria.
He said the registration effort received a good response from the youth, with the age category 16-29 years old accounting for 402,401 of the new voters.
Other voters who were re-registering in same district or moving to other districts accounted for 1,277,811 applications, he added.
KwaZulu-Natal province registered the highest number with 358,384 voters, followed by Gauteng (315,282) and the Eastern Cape (240,514), Mamabolo said.
Meanwhile, the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has expressed delight at the gazetting of November1 as local government elections date by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma on Monday.
“This legal act formally institutes the election phase in the re-constitution of municipal councils within the local sphere of government,” the IEC said.
It added: “The ministerial proclamation has made it possible for the Commission to publish an amended election timetable, which is a consequence of the re-opening of the registration process.”
NM/jn/APA