Dear Editor,
On Wednesday, July 22, around 1.30pm I received a cell phone call from Amerindian voters of Mainstay/Whyaka saying that they were being disenfranchised from casting their votes for a new village council and Toshao, according to the Amerindian Act 2006.The official notice received from the returning officer and posted at the place of poll with the names of the eligible voters initially set the opening and closing of the polls at 9 am to 4 pm. This was confirmed and agreed by all, but it was changed.
At another meeting the returning officer met with voters of the community and she decided to change the closing time to 2 pm instead of 4 pm. This was a total breach and made a mockery of the Act. On the morning of voting the returning officer and her team turned up half an hour late, and voting began at 9.30 am instead of 9 am. The population of Mainstay/Whyaka is within the vicinity of 638 people; the number of adult registered voters on the list was 300. The three candidates contesting for the post of Toshao were Joel Fredericks, Marveena Pearson and Shervin De Jonge.
At 1pm the returning officer and her staff closed off the voting and began tallying the votes. Some voters came to cast their votes at 1.10 pm, and were allowed to cast their votes because the agreed closing time had been changed suddenly. On the other hand a few of them were turned away and couldn’t cast their votes. Only 223 people were allowed to cast their votes out of the 300 registered voters. However, Mainstay/Whyaka is a small village and it is not easy to hide things for long.
Some of the people claimed they were working in their farms but left what they were doing and came out to vote before the poll closed at 2 pm. When they turned up they saw that the returning officer and staff were tallying the votes and were declaring the new Toshao, which was Joel Fredericks. They observed that voting was being done by a show of hands for the village councillors, instead of by secret ballot. The Amerindians claimed that this was a breach of the Amerindian Act 2006.They pointed out to me the three breaches which took place on the said
voting day: changing the official time for the opening and closing of the poll; no secret ballot for the election of councillors; and no naming of a date which was supposed to be set aside for the nomination and swearing in of the Toshao and councillors.
They tried to make contact with the Regional Chairman via cell phone, to inform him of what was happening at the place of poll, only to be told that he was in a meeting.
They are calling on the Minister of Indigenous Affairs to launch an investigation into this matter urgently.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan
