INJURED VOTERS CONTINUE TO POLLING STATION

NDZINGENI – The final day of elections started on a bad note for 15 voters who were involved in an almost nasty accident on their way to the polling station.

One of the accident victims, Nomphumelelo Ndwandwe, who was treated and discharged at Nkonyeni Clinic said the Toyota van lost control after the brakes got depleted.
“The van’s brakes got depleted hence the driver failed to control the vehicle just after we headed towards Ndzingeni polling sta-tion with 15 passengers on board. Luckily, none of the passengers sustained severe injuries; we were all treated and discharged at the clinic,” Ndwandwe said.

Gcebela Nkambule who sus-tained head injuries said he was lucky to be alive after he was thrown off the vehicle when it failed to negotiate a corner because the driver could not apply brakes, since they had been depleted.

“I really cannot recall what actually happened to the letter but I can recall that I flew off from the vehicle when it overturned. During the accident, I got injured mostly in the legs and head but I am glad that I am still able to walk since the accident could have been deadly if the driver had been moving at a very high speed,” Nkambule noted.

Ironically, all victims of the accident proceeded to cast their votes at Ndzingeni Primary School after being treated and discharged at the local clinic.

When Fikile Dlamini was asked what motivated her to find alternative transport to the polling station after the accident, she said: “I wanted to exercise my right to vote and also decide who will be the next Ndzingeni MP. In fact, I believe that it would have been folly not to proceed with the journey after being hurt because I would have not been injured at the first place if I had no intentions to cast my vote.”    
The Ndzingeni Returning Of-ficer, Amos Zwane, who is in charge of the electoral process in all seven chiefdoms under the Ndzingeni Inkhundla, said the elections had been generally a success.                  

          
Zwane said no violent scene or mischievous actions had been displayed by the people of Ndzingeni during the main day of the 2013 General Elections.
“The long queues witnessed during the primary elections have been sorted. To ease the pressure on polling officers, we now have 23 polling officers and two clerks who have made sure that people were not kept waiting to cast their votes,” said Zwane.

Evidently, four polling stations that were visited at around noon had no queues.
When the electorate were randomly interviewed on what they thought led to manageable queues, the common stance was that most people arrived at dawn to cast their vote hence there was no queues around noon.

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