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Ten years ago Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Des van Rooyen and some of his family members were taken to a voting station in Khutsong in a police Nyala and voted under police guard.
Mayor of the troubled Merafong municipality at the time, Van Rooyen and some of his councillors had had their houses torched by the community in protest against their municipality being moved from Gauteng to become part of North West.
Van Rooyen was one of the few people who went to vote in the 2006 municipal elections in Khutsong after the community decided to boycott elections.
Today, Van Rooyen leads a government pack of officials that is hard at work trying to avoid a repeat of 2006’s poor turnout in Khutsong in Vuwani.
Police were seen removing barricades in Vyeboom village near Vuwani on Saturday after several routes leading into the village had been blocked since Thursday.
In the town of Vuwani, residents were not in agreement: some wanted to vote and others supported the pro-Makhado group to boycott elections.
“I will go to exercise my democratic right to vote, but I will be putting my life at risk and my house could be torched. Most trust government after they went public promising to seriously look into our issue, they won’t just hit a U-turn and sing a different tune afterwards,” said a middle-aged woman from Vuwani township who did not want to be named.
One traditional leader who was forced to step up his personal protection after opposing a decision to stop schooling, Chief Livhuwani Matsila of Matsila village, condemned the violence that made people afraid to vote.
“The signing of the agreement ... effectively means that our people can now go to the voting stations and cast their votes without fear of violence, harassment and intimidation. Those who are still preaching the gospel of violence do not represent our communities and some of them are self-appointed spokespersons,” he said.
“The most important breakthrough of the signed agreement is the return of our children to the classroom and I hope teachers won’t be harassed or intimidated when they return to work.”
