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Few IEC officials will walk to polling stations. Here are five vehicles which will make South Africa’s elections happen.
Toyota Sesfikile 2.7 - R419 900– best for maximising voter turnout
South Africa’s most popular people mover will also be the most important vehicle for most voters who are commuting to a polling station. Fortunately, the Sesfikile’s reliability is unrivalled.
Toyota South Africa has been building people movers for the local market for decades, which means the Quantum is engineered to survive punishing rural gavel roads – unlike some more luxurious European MPVs.
Also helps that it manages to seat up to 16 people, which means a terrific economy of scale for operators who are doing their bit to ensure that most of South Africa gets to vote.
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Mercedes V220d Avantgarde - R1 209 427: Best for communicating with IEC headquarters
To nominate the V-Class as an IEC logistics vehicle would appear slightly elitist and disingenuous but it does serve a very specific purpose. We accept that MPVs are the best vehicles to support the election, because they have the most space to transport IEC officials and voting materials, but what about communications?
If there is a dispute at a polling station, or a power outage, and specific information is required to be sent and received, well, then the V-Class is a potential saviour with 80G of safe in-car hardware stowage and an infotainment system which syncs brilliantly with most devices.
The middle cabin seating can also be configured to a two-facing-two set-up, to host potential conflict resolution sessions which might arise between rival parties.
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Hyundai H1 panel van R476 900: Best for moving all the votes
The Korean brand might be known for its compact city cars and crossovers, but it also builds truly vast vans. Of these, the three-seater H1 panelvan is its most capacious, offering an enormous 4426-litres of cargo space.
That’s an awful lot of ballot boxes and to ensure it can cope with they weight of all that precious democratically verified paper, the H1 panelvan is load rated for 1.1t and has a 2.5-litre turbodiesel engine, boosting 441Nm, to ensure all those ballot boxes get to where they need to be, timeously.
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VW California Beach R924 200: Best for polling stations in the middle of nowhere
To ensure that each South African exercises their right to vote, can be a mammoth task across a country with such varied geography and huge distances. Servicing rural voters can be exceptionally challenging and if IEC officials need to perhaps camp out in an area to make the election process happen, they can’t be better served than doing it with a VW California Beach.
An integrated mattress and pop-up roof tent system mean IEC officials won’t have to worry about having to sleep on the floor of a makeshift rural polling station if they can’t find accommodation close by. The California Beach’s drivetrain is also VW’s 4Motion system, which means all-wheel drive and the ability to go beyond where MPVs would normally venture, deep into rural South Africa – where the voters are few, but their votes, just as important.
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Ford Tourneo custom 2.2 Trend R567 300: Best for keeping IEC officials in line
When you think ‘Ford’ the image is nearly always of a Ranger bakkie, not a large MPV.
The American brand does market a rather convincing one in South Africa, the Tourneo custom, and it is huge. Configured as a six-seater, it is an ideal IEC observer’s vehicle, capable of transporting six election officials and 2674-litres worth of ballot boxes.
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Looks good too and to ensure that IEC officials set a good example by following traffic rues in the same way they expect voters to follow polling station protocol, the Tourneo custom features a speed limit function to its cruise control.
