Said IEC chairman Brigalia Bam: "The moment you start something new and do it well, the more you realise how long the journey you have to travel still is."
With 12 days to go before the national elections, Bam said she had never been this anxious about an election despite the run-up preparations running smoothly.
"In fact things are going so well that six leading international organisations have told us they won't be sending election observers to the country because they are confident enough we can do it on our own," she said.
Bam said this election would be one of the most highly contested ones and that political rivalry should not be seen as political violence or intolerance.
She said she had been amazed at the growth in political maturity since independence and this was highlighted by how seriously the parties had adopted the code of conduct.
She also mentioned KwaZulu-Natal as a "great story.
"In elections gone by we spent millions on burying people killed through election violence, this year with only 12 days to go there have not been any deaths," she said.
She said that supporters were no longer prepared to die for their leader and for their beliefs, and that was a good thing.
"The number of women on the electoral roll has also amazed me," she said, adding that there were more female candidates than males.
But chief electoral officer Pansy Tlakula said despite the apparent smoothness of proceedings, there were challenges remaining.
"There are 35,000 voting stations in the country but South Africans are very migrant. Many have moved out of the area where they registered and have not told us. These people still expect to vote," she said.
The IEC had spent millions of rands on voter education and the training of staff.
The IEC's budget for the 2004 election was R640-million, down from 1994's R963-million.
Tlakula said the 215,000 electoral staff had been comprehensively trained to an almost para-legal status.
She said these officials would be required to instantly sort out complicated legal problems.
She said prisoner voting would pose a challenge as many had been sentenced and placed in prisons in areas away from where they had originally been registered.
"All we will have to go on is the little sticker in their ID books," she said.
She said a large number of voters were expected to be away from their registration areas on April 14 because of the public holidays.
She said these voters fell under Section 21 which allowed voters not in their registered area to cast a national vote but not a provincial vote.
"But all these people will have to be carefully checked by the IEC officials," she said.
The counting of votes would start immediately after the close of voting stations.
While much had been spent on the training of election officials, more had been spent on voter education.
Deputy chief electoral officer Mosotho Poepya said the IEC had worked very hard to bring the youth into the voting cycle.
"In 1994, voting was raw and exciting but already by the 1999 election many had lost interest," he said - Sapa.
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