All results from the 2021 local government elections are expected to be completed through tonight with the commitment that all municipalities will have an election result by daybreak.
In a media briefing held by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), the chief electoral office Sy Mamabolo said that the level of capturing already in the system awaiting scanning and auditing was at 99.3%.
Mamabolo said they were committed to providing results by the early hours of Thursday morning.
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ANC loses its firm grip in Mpumalanga municipalities plagued by service delivery protests
The ANC has taken a knock in three municipalities in Mpumalanga that have suffered from poor service delivery.
The ANC has had a firm grip on these municipalities over the years, but the opposition parties have won an increased share of the vote in the local government elections.
WATCH: We are the real king makers says Patriotic Alliance’s Gayton McKenzie
Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader Gayton McKenzie on Wednesday said that he could not contain his excitement, as the green party made major inroads in the City of Johannesburg – almost doubling their seats compared to previous elections.
“We are very very excited. We are not surprised but just excited because we have worked so hard. We were expecting what you see now. We are not shocked about this. We knew we are going to be king makers,” McKenzie said, while viewing the results at the national results operations centre (ROC), at the Tshwane Showgrounds.
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ANC ready to be opposition council if coalitions do not work out, says Mashatile
The ANC says it's ready to be an opposition party in some councils, as their numbers dwindle in the balance, while processing of votes from the local government elections continues on Wednesday.
While the talks of coalitions begin, ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte said they are not negotiating from a position of weakness.
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Democratic Independent Party leader, Anwar Adams, demands a rerun of elections
Cape Town - The leader of the Democratic Independent Party, Anwar Adams, disrupted the Electoral Commission of SA’s (IEC’s) Western Cape results centre’s briefing, demanding the elections be rerun.
Adams said there had been irregularities and this did not make for free and fair elections.
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🎥 Henk Kruger/African News Agency
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ANC set to retain Enoch Mgijima municipality rocked by R15m sports field tender scandal
Johannesburg - The ANC is set to retain the Enoch Mgijima municipality which found itself in a sports field tender scandal worth over R15 million just before the local government elections.
The Eastern Cape municipality was rocked by a scandal weeks before the elections where R15m was spent on a shoddily built stadium.
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FF+ takes ’huge chunk’ of vote from the DA in the Western Cape, says Peter Marais
Johannesburg – The Freedom Front Plus’s Peter Marais has expressed his delight that his party has taken a huge portion of the vote from the DA.
“We are very, very happy because it is obvious that we have taken a big chunk of support away from the DA.
The coloured parties have also taken a chunk, parties like GOOD and the Patriotic Alliance, away from the DA, which actually makes nonsense to the DA’s claim that they govern the best,” Marais said.
“What makes people unhappy with them? The only answer is that they govern very well in affluent areas,” he said in an interview with Independent Media at the Western Cape Results Centre on Wednesday.
Read the full story: WATCH: FF+ takes ’huge chunk’ of vote from the DA in the Western Cape, says Peter Marais
Video: Mayibongwe Maqhina/IOL Politics
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Latest update:
74% of the votes processed.
Green= ANC
Yellow= DA
Red= EFF pic.twitter.com/Oxnhai2ibf
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undefinedSteenhuisen talking about coalitions. Says counting is slow and they would have liked to be in huddled already talking with other parties @IOL
— Kailene Pillay (@kailenepillay) November 3, 2021
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These small parties in Eastern Cape could be king-makers
Smaller parties will emerge as king-makers in Nelson Mandela Bay metro with the ANC unable to get an outright majority.
This is one of the hotly contested metros in the province.
The IEC results show that smaller parties could force the major parties to get into a coalition, as happened in 2016.
Former anti-apartheid activisit Mkhuseli Jack may have failed to gain huge support, but his Abantu Integrity Movement has managed to garner 1.24% of the vote.
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Thin lead for ANC in Joburg, Ekurhuleni
The ANC continued to enjoy slender leads in two of Gauteng’s three highly contested metropolitan municipalities by 10am on Wednesday.
In the City of Johannesburg, the ANC was 31.76% ahead while the DA was not far behind at 28.98% and ActionSA had garnered 16.15%.
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WATCH: DA holds victory rally in uMngeni Local Municipality
Cape Town - After winning its first ever municipality in KwaZulu-Natal the DA in the province is set to host a victory rally in the uMngeni Local Municipality on Wednesday to be addressed by the party’s provincial leader Francois Rodger and the mayoral candidate Christopher Pappas.
In its campaign before Monday’s local government elections the DA pulled out all the stops in a push to gain popularity and score a victory in uMngeni. Victory was secured with over 47% of the vote as they toppled the ANC, which had previously led the council. The ANC could only amass 39% of the vote
The ANC in the Eastern Cape has confirmed it was discussing possible coalition partners for the Nelson Mandela Bay metro and two other municipalities where it has failed to secure an outright majority.
ANC provincial spokesperson Loyiso Magqashela would not say which parties they are looking at.
He said the office of the provincial secretary, Lulama Ngcukayitobi, was leading those discussions on coalitions.
The ANC was leading the race in Nelson Mandela Bay metro with 41.01% and the DA is sitting at 38.86%. The EFF is in the third spot with 6.81%.
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WATCH: DA says it has firm grip on Western Cape, will discuss coalitions in hung municipalities
The DA retains the top spot in the Western Cape, with a reduced percentage of votes.
This is according to the interim results as at 10.30am, which show the party has claimed 54.15% of the votes in the province.
In 2016, the party won in the Western Cape with 63.33%.
The latest figures give an indication that so far 272 seats have been claimed, comprising 195 wards and 77 proportional representatives.
Read the full story: DA says it has firm grip on Western Cape, will discuss coalitions in hung municipalities
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Do you believe your votes have been recorded and counted accurately? HSRC survey says 84% of voters believe so
South Africans have continued to place their trust in the current vote counting process stating that they are confident that their ballots will be counted accurately.
This has emerged in a survey by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).
Acting strategic leader and research director at the HSRC Dr Benjamin Roberts stated that 84% of voters were completely or very confident that their vote would be accurately counted with 52% of the voters saying they were confident while 32% said they were very confident.
"Only 1% said that they were ‘not confident at all’ in the vote counting process," Roberts said.
The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) is presenting the preliminary findings of the Election Satisfaction Survey to the Electoral Commission.The research is based on random voting stations and interviewed about 12k voters. Voters were asked about the voting experience and whether they believe the election was free and fair.
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.
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Special votes allegedly not counted after claims of ballot box tampering
Special votes cast on Saturday and Sunday at some polling stations in Waverley, Pretoria, were allegedly not counted because the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) believed the ballot boxes were tampered with.
The Pretoria News was told the exclusion of special votes from counting was made after IEC officials discovered that the number of ballot papers did not tally with the total recorded on Saturday and Sunday.
Some said the ballot boxes must have been tampered with where they were stored over the weekend.
Read the full story here: Special votes allegedly not counted after claims of ballot box tampering
With 58% of the counting complete, here's your latest on the scoreboard.@IOL #ElectionResults2021 pic.twitter.com/2VDpiX8b0d
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Coalition talks could be on cards for key Eastern Cape municipalities
The race for control of most municipalities may be a done deal for the ANC, but the ruling party in the Eastern Cape may be forced to get into coalitions in some municipalities where it failed to get an outright majority.
Other than Nelson Mandela Bay where the ANC was still leading with 40.81%, the party may be forced to get into bed with other parties in Kou-Kamma municipality and Dr Beyers Naudé municipality where its support has dropped to below 50%.
In Dr Beyers Naudé municipality the ANC was sitting at 46.82% followed by the DA at 39.55% and the EFF at 4.18%.
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Load shedding hampers overnight vote count - only 58% tallied
Johannesburg - The Electoral Commission of South Africa is yet to confirm if the slow pace in the counting of votes overnight on Wednesday could be attributed to load shedding.
On Tuesday, Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo indicated that the Commission was expecting some areas in the country to be highly affected by power outages.
By 7am on Wednesday, only 58 percent of votes were tallied.
This was in stark contrast to the IEC's assurance that all votes would have been counted by midnight.
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Meanwhile the Electoral Commission confirmed that load shedding affected the the overnight count
Vote percentages
Cape Town – With 58% of the votes counted by 4.45am on Wednesday morning, the ANC had 46.42% of the votes.
The DA had 22.25% of the votes, and the EFF had 10.9% of the votes.
The IFP had 4.5% of the votes, Freedom Front Plus had 2.72%, and independent candidates had 1.58% of the counted votes.
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Human Sciences Research Council to release results of elections satisfaction survey
Pretoria – The Human Sciences Research Council is expected to brief the media on Wednesday morning, to release its preliminary findings of the elections satisfaction survey (ESS).
The briefing comes amid the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) working around the clock, since last night, to audit, verify, and release figures.
Acting strategic leader and research director at the HSRC Dr Benjamin Roberts is expected to outline detailed facts about the survey.
The purpose of the ESS, which has been commissioned by the IEC, aimed at collating data on the opinions and perceptions of voters, as well as election observers, on voting day.
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Up after midnight? This is what the election results look like so far
Pretoria – Early on Wednesday morning, the ANC continued to slowly edge closer to the 47% mark, as it firmly clinched about 5.7 million votes.
By 1am, live results reflected on the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) board showed that the ruling party had, so far, gained 46.2% of voters’ support, with the DA holding 22.5%, followed by the EFF with 10.9% of voters’ support.
In terms of councils, the ANC held 72 of them thus far, and the DA holds 21 councils.
In Limpopo, the ANC had already surpassed the 60% mark, while the DA and the EFF were nowhere near the 20% mark.
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’We did exceptionally well,’ Mashaba says, reacting to Action SA’s results
Cape Town – Action SA president and City of Johannesburg mayoral candidate Herman Mashaba said the party has done “exceptionally well” in contesting their first municipal elections.
“We did exceptionally well in the history of the democratic dispensation. No political party – one-year-old – has ever performed the way that we did,” he said, speaking to Newzroom Afrika on Tuesday.
“For me, in particular, I am not happy with the results. I would have wanted us to get an outright majority, but I am a pragmatic person. I understand the dynamics.
Read the full story here.
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