Voting in central London concluded at 9pm on Sunday. On Saturday, approximately 800 South Africans made their mark at South Africa House in Trafalgar Square every hour.
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The queue to get into the polling booth inside was about three hours long; some wore Springbok jerseys, others red Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) berets, green African National Congress (ANC) bucket hats or blue Democratic Alliance (DA) stickers.
South African academic administrator Adam Habib, Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, took to X to share a series of photos showing how many people turned out to vote in London.
Habib explained that he expected the process to be quick in and out, but the queue in front of him indicated otherwise.
‘South Africa house in London this morning for the general election. I thought that I would go down quickly in the morning and vote easily. I realised my vote – like my country – is going to take time and work,’ he tweeted.
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Dineo Matlhako, deputy high commissioner for South Africa in the United Kingdom, told Eye Witness News that there were 70 staff members working inside South Africa House and 20 outside, processing 24 000 registered voters, the highest deployment of any voting station.
In comparison, the maximum deployment in South Africa is 35 people.
Meanwhile, as the country approaches the May 29 polls, more than 650 voting stations have been identified as hotspots.
This is out of approximately 23 000 voting stations.
The National Joint Operational Structure revealed this figure earlier on Sunday during a media briefing on law enforcement’s readiness for the elections.
Tebello Mosikili, co-chair of Natjoints, says the focus will be on provinces with a history of election disruption.
Mosikili, however, declined to comment on which provinces are included.
‘When we developed the plan, we looked at the previous, the current intelligence, the climate, the maturity of our electorates, and we plan accordingly,’ he explained. ‘So, I don’t want to downplay any of our 9 provinces to say this one is better than the other, but we do have different levels of our focus in those.’
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Picture: @AdHabb / X
