Delays through the night slowed down the counting process, with only 69% of votes completed by Wednesday morning.
This is a far cry from the Electoral Commission’s target of 90% by this time, however the IEC said that at the level of capturing, 90% of the results were already in the system awaiting scanning and auditing.
This means of the 64 502 results expected, 58 059 have been captured into the results system. Of the 58 059 results captured, 44 707 have been scanned into an image and thus available.
On Wednesday morning, the live results reflected on the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) board showed that nationally the ruling party had, so far, gained 46.18% of voters’ support, with the DA holding 22.36%, followed by the EFF with 10.23% of voters’ support.
As the ANC remained under the 50% mark, it managed to bag 6,5 million votes.
In the metro’s, the DA was leading in the City of Tshwane with 34,81%, followed by the ANC at 31,79%. The EFF, which campaigned in full force in the capital metro, had 10,76% of the votes while new kid on the block, ActionSA scored 8,96%.
In the City of Johannesburg, the ANC was at 31,77%, while the DA followed closely at 29,16%. Herman Mashaba’s party, ActionSA was at 16,15%.
Results coming out of Ekurhuleni on Wednesday morning at around 8am reflected the ANC scored 37,55% of voters support so far, the DA was at 29,53%, the EFF at 13,7% and ActionSA at 6,52%.
In eThekwini, the ANC was leading with 42,03%, the DA at 28,15% and the EFF at 9,72%.
Results in Buffalo City in the Eastern Cape reflected that the ANC was at 60,62%, the DA at 18,35% and the EFF at 11,83%.
The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro still remained a close call, with the ANC securing 40, 31% of the votes while the DA was hot on their tails with 39,61% of the support. The EFF is currently at 6,66%.
According to IEC, the completion rate in the Northern Cape is 89%, 82% in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Mpumalanga and the Free State are at 78%. The completion rate in the rest of the provinces ranges between 55% and 69%.
“The Commission remains committed to finalizing results expeditiously while taking care to ensure that all necessary verifications are enforced. The number of completed municipalities now stands 111 from a total of 257,” the IEC reported.
kailene.pillay@inl.co.za
Political Bureau