Johannesburg - The City of London has the highest number of South Africans living abroad who will cast their votes on April 27 (Freedom Day) before the May 8 national elections.
Dubai has the second highest number of registered South African voters.
This was revealed by Independent Electoral Commission deputy electoral officer, Mawethu Mosery, when he addressed academics and students at Unisa in Pretoria about the IEC's state of readiness for the upcoming elections.
He said the total number of voters living abroad was 29 334 and the majority of them live in Europe.
“Europe has a total number of 14 800 eligible voters. The majority of those voters - 9000 of them - live in London.
Dubai has the second highest number of 1542 followed by The Hague which has 1355 South African eligible voters living there,” Mosery said.
The high number of voters in London prompted the IEC’s chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo to visit the city to arrange logistics which would make it possible for people to cast their votes, he said.
Mosery said due to the high number of voters, they could not use the facilities at the South African Embassy in London.
Mosery, stood in for Mamabolo, who was supposed to address the students and staff at Unisa.
According to him, the IEC has a similar problem in Joubert Park in Joburg, with a high number of voters living in that area, but said plans were being made for them to vote at different voting stations.
Mosery said the IEC had already certified its voters roll with a total of 26.7million voters on the roll, saying it was a slight improvement from 2014.
The IEC had 25.14million people on the roll in 2014.
Mosery revealed that more than 14million eligible voters for these elections are women and 12million men.
“We have a total number of 55% of women on the voters roll and 45% are men.
"Limpopo has the highest number of women (59%) on the voters roll while other provinces have 55%,” Mosery said.
However, he said more than 4million voters will have to produce their residential addresses at the polling stations before they can cast their ballots on May 8.
Mosery said the IEC had verified the addresses of 22.4million voters while 1.4million of them have no addresses and 2.4million of them have incomplete addresses.
He said the Northern Cape had the highest number of voters who have provided their addresses for verification. “The Northern Cape is doing well with the provision of residential addresses by eligible voters compared with other provinces."
According to Mosery, the IEC had difficulty in obtaining residential addresses of voters living in the former homeland states of Ciskei, Transkei, and those in the former homelands of Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
The IEC also listed KwaZulu-Natal's rural areas, where they had problems in verifying the addresses of potential voters.
Mosery said a total number of 76 parties were contesting the elections - 48 of them for national elections while the rest were contesting in the provinces.
Gauteng has the highest number of 36 political parties contesting for seats in the provincial legislature and the Northern Cape has the lowest number of 22 parties.
A total of 18000 candidates are contesting for 826 seats in the national and provincial legislatures in the country.