Voting is taking place at a snail's pace in Nelmapius, east of Pretoria.

The suburb, according to residents, has been plagued for months by water outages and has streets littered with potholes.

Kgotlelelo Manzini, the presiding officer at the Willow Manor Christian Church voting station in the suburb's Ward 33, said that of the 1,213 registered voters only 232 had cast their vote so far.

“I hope it is because of the heat. It is unbearably hot today. We hope the voters will come in their numbers this evening,” she said.

She said voting also got off to a slow start, with voting machines repeatedly going offline throughout the morning.

“There were also issues with ballot papers. We opened at 7am but the papers arrived only at 8am. There were issues with escorting them to us. Once they arrived, voting got under way quickly, but it has now really slowed down,” she said.

Mathew Mashifane, who worked in the morning, said he was excited to vote in the afternoon. 

“I am voting for change. My issues are service delivery problems. All the parties that have been in power in Tshwane have promised service delivery but none have delivered anything but empty promises.

“The thing that has helped me make up my mind on who not to vote for is last week’s load-shedding.”

Roset Mokwebu said service delivery was nonexistent in the area. 

“For two years I have complained about a pothole outside my driveway. It has never been fixed. I'm voting for a party that will fix the pothole and deliver on its promises.”

She described Tshwane’s politicians as “useless”.

“They are all full of nonsense and hot air,” said the 71-year-old. “All I want is a councillor who does what they say they will do and fix the water, road, electricity and crime problems.”

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