Voting stations open in Limpopo’s Thabazimbi as by-election gets underway

THABAZIMBI - Voting stations in the Thabazimbi Local Municipality opened on Wednesday morning in Limpopo as residents made their way to cast their votes.

A by-election is being held in the embattled municipality after its council was dissolved due to political infighting in August.

ALSO READ: IEC says people who did not live in Thabazimbi tried to unlawfully register for by-election

Twenty-one political parties are contesting, with 24 seats up for grabs in the municipal council.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has spent the past three months running an awareness campaign in Thabazimbi, successfully registering 51,000 of the municipality's 65,000 residents.  

Among the newly registered are over 1,300 first-time voters aged between 18 and 19, who did not participate in the 2024 general elections.

The municipality was dissolved after both the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) claimed to be the rightful governing party, leading to significant disruptions in service delivery.

Eyewitness News is currently at Dwaalboom Primary School, located in Ward 5 of the Thabazimbi Municipality.

This is the largest voting district in Thabazimbi, with over 6,000 people registered to vote on Wednesday.