Durban teacher jailed for rigging Local Government Election

Nomusa Precious Gabuza 37, A KwaZulu Natal, Durban-based Teacher was last week sentenced to three years of correctional supervision and four years’ imprisonment at Umlazi regional court in Durban. The instructor is suspected of violating the Local Government Municipal Electoral Act 2000 by voting fraudulently 24 times. She broke the law and abused her position, according to the commission’s internal investigation.

A teacher from Durban, Nomusa Precious Gabuza, has been sentenced for fraudulently voting 24 times during last year’s local government elections. This lends credence to complainnts by the IFP about teachers, who are mainly SADTU members (ANC aligned), presiding over elections.

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Since then, the commission has praised her conviction, saying it demonstrates its commitment to quick action and consequence management.“The offense committed by Gabuza was discovered and she was arrested on the morning of 1 November 2021, before voting started. The voting process proceeded without incident. The commission lauds the partnership with political party agents, the police, and the NPA which ensured Gabuza was not only caught but served with justice eight months after the crime was committed.” Commission said.

Since then, the IEC has added safeguards to its system to ensure that history does not repeat itself. This is “a powerful validation of the Commission’s processes, which have now been enhanced with the introduction of the Voter Management Device, which eliminates multiple voting”,The Commission further said, “It also underscores the Commission’s commitment to timely intervention and consequence management.”

On election day, Gabuza was a party agent, It has been quite a number of years whereby the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) received numerous complaints from other political parties about agents employed by the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) presiding over polls when they are an affiliate of the ruling party.

Because teachers are often the most literate in many localities, the IEC has developed a tradition of enlisting them as election assistants over the years. Opposition parties, on the other hand, argue that Sadtu members who serve in this capacity misuse their positions at polling stations and counting centers to benefit the ANC.

Bantu Holomisa, the leader of the United Democratic Movement, said the goal was to “collectively consolidate” their action plan after previous letters to the elections authority had gone unanswered in recent years. Former president Mangosuthu Buthelezi shared his dissatisfaction about SADTU agents that his party had petitioned the IEC, seeking a commitment that they would not employ known Sadtu activists and would monitor the abuse of state resources. “Those shenanigans must be stopped. It has long been a fallacy that elections have been free and fair,” said Buthelezi.

Every five years, municipal elections are held. It’s a combined or hybrid system that combines the ward system with the proportional representation (PR) method used in municipal elections.

There are 3 types of Municipal Councils in South Africa:

Category A: Metropolitan Councils
Category B: Local Councils (LC)
Category C: District Councils (DC) (have executive and legislative powers in areas that include local municipalities)

For metropolitan municipalities, there are 2 types of elections in each ward: