Julius Malema joins long queue to vote, endorses integrity of the IEC

“Is he standing behind us,” squealed an excited voter as EFF leader Julius Malema joined the snaking queue at a Seshego primary school in Limpopo on election day.

Malema was joined by his wife Mantoa Matlala and the party's Godrich Gardee at Mponegele Lower Primary School on Wednesday afternoon to cast his vote. He arrived at 12 noon and by 2.20pm, he and his entourage had not yet got to the front of the queue.

An excited crowd gathered around the leader of the red berets to shake hands with him and take pictures while he waited.

He spoke at length on a range of issues, including the significance of these elections, the violence in Juju Valley and the IEC's handling of the votes.

“It's a turning point, it's a point where our country will make serious inroads ... where a voter will decide which direction we are going as a country. We should be able to see some changes from this election,” Malema said.

“It's an election where everybody you interviewed [is] saying we need change, jobs and service delivery. I've been listening to interviews the whole morning, the language is the same. There's no [one saying] 'we're voting for the jobs we received or houses we received.” 

Speaking on the IEC's running of the polls, Malema acknowledged that while there have been “system glitches”, he thought “things are running very well”.

“The elections will be free and fair, there is nothing 100% in life. We must not, out of our own fear of losing elections, start casting aspersions on the IEC and its integrity.

“They've run elections successfully for so many years, without a problem, so we shouldn't expect major problems.”

He distanced the party from the recent violence in Juju Valley, insisting the EFF ran a “clean campaign”.

As Malema stood in line, metres away attempted murder-accused Jossey Buthane, who recently defected from the EFF to the ANC, stood defiant in his party regalia as he spoke on the same topic.

Buthane was released on R5,000 bail last Friday after appearing in the Seshego magistrate's court in connection with the attempted murder of a 25-year-old man shot in Juju Valley during a political campaign on May 19.

Buthane told reporters on Wednesday he had not yet visited Juju Valley but planned to during the course of the day.

“I can't be worried about my presence in Juju Valley. I'm a South African citizen and my bail conditions say I can be in Seshego today so I'm here.

“They started with us, by the way, and when we responded, they cried and went to the police. We must not have political parties that behave like crybabies.”

Buthane later accused some EFF members of campaigning on the school's grounds, against IEC protocol.

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