Masemola vows to address election disruptions decisively

Reading Time: 2 minutes

National Police Commissioner Fanie Masemola says that police will deal decisively with anyone disrupting the elections.

Addressing police officers in Harrismith, Free State, who will be deployed to KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, Masemola stressed the need to ensure voter safety in hotspot areas.

Seven hundred additional police officers will assist at various voting stations during the elections, supplementing the 17 000 officers already deployed in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

Masemola urged community members to cooperate with the police during this period.

“The reason is as you are aware with our earlier briefings, we have got over 600 voting stations that are classified as high risk. Well, the figure is not stagnant, it goes up and down but most of those voting stations are found in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, so hence we want to make that in addition to the police that are in that province we have this extra over 500 that are deployed to assist the police in the province,” Masemola said.

Police readiness a day before Elections:

He highlighted Mthatha in the Eastern Cape as a concern due to violent crimes.

“So we carry on in terms of making sure that we enforce the law in that town of Mthatha and we are reinforcing Mthatha with over 300 police who will be there tonight. We expect that their law enforcement will take its course. We expect people to go and vote countrywide. The situation also has been okay.”

Masemola made it clear that any misconduct at voting stations will not be tolerated. “Any intimidation, yes, anybody that blockade or they must take note that we are not going to negotiate with people that blockade roads. We will make sure that we move them by force, so in order to make life easy don’t even do it because it won’t end nicely.”

The officers will be deployed to various locations to ensure safe and peaceful elections.

2024 Elections | KZN beefs up police presence: