Cape Town - Despite being in the lead with 52.8% of votes cast in the province and 214 seats won during Monday’s local government elections, the DA’s top leadership in the province was cautious by Tuesday afternoon as the results continued trickling into the IEC results centre.
Responding to a question about the DA’s 33% lead over the ANC, which at that point had 19% of the votes cast, Premier Alan Winde said: “If you’ve been through a few elections you know there is still a long way to go.
“There’s a lot of votes still to be verified and its all the big voting stations. Right now it is only the small stations that are in.”
With 19% of the votes counted as of 6pm last night, the ANC had won 108 seats while the Good party with 4.5% of the votes, with 15 seats.
Here is an update what the results looked like on Wednesday morning.
In Kannaland it looked like the Independent Civic Organisation of South Africa (ICOSA) would be calling the shots again after a turbulent term in office which featured court battles with the province.
Good party mayoral candidate Brett Herron said It was hard to tell how the party was doing as the results were just trickling in and their own agents were still stuck at voting stations, waiting to pass on results.
However, Herron said they had seen some encouraging results by mid-afternoon in wards where they hadn't expected to do well, such as in the City Bowl where in Ward 115 they got 8% of the votes.
“That was quite good for that ward. It’s not quite our demographic and we did not expect it. But in the vast majority of wards where we think our support lies, results are not in yet,” he said.
Meanwhile, political parties in the province last night appeared to be untitled in their frustration with the IEC on the issue of names missing from the voters roll at Monday’s local government elections.
Even Winde suffered the fate of not finding his name on the roll when he went to cast his ballot at Jan van Riebeek Primary School, despite having registered at the same station as a voter.
“I had to fill out a form and verify my details. My wife and I registered together and when we got there she was on the roll but I was not. Fortunately, some of the same officers that had registered me were present and they knew straight away.
“I was lucky but many other citizens found that sort of situation and it is a big issue,” said Winde.
The Freedom Front Plus was considering legal action against the IEC on the matter of voters whose names were missing from the voters roll despite having registered.
Outgoing City councillor, Erica Botha-Rossouw said: “We are aware of about 6 000 people whose names were not on the list and those were only our party members, but the figure could be up to 70 000 people with the same problem.”
DA Western Cape Deputy Leader Tertius Simmers said the issue had been escalated to the party’s federal council which would decide if any action would be taken.
As for the low turn-out, political scientist Shingai Mutizwa-Mangiza said in past elections, a lower turn-out had typically benefited the smaller parties.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za