By Johnathan Paoli
About 15.9 million South Africans voted in Wednesday’s local government elections, with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) receiving more than 800 complaints as counting continues ahead of the declaration of final results.
IEC Deputy CEO for Electoral Operations Masego Sheburi said on Thursday that most complaints had been resolved, with about 106 still outstanding. Political parties and candidates have until 5pm on Friday to lodge formal objections that could affect election results.
Delivering an update at the national Results Operations Centre (ROC), Sheburi said the estimated voter figure included those who participated in special voting.
“We can indicate that at this rate, 15.9 million South Africans participated, both during special votes, as well as during the elections yesterday. As it relates to complaints, there were, by last night, just over 800 complaints that have been lodged by contestants,” Sheburi said.
More than 29 million South Africans were registered to vote.
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Sheburi said most complaints concerned allegations that voting station staff had prevented party agents from observing voting and counting procedures.
He distinguished between complaints handled at voting stations and formal objections that could influence the outcome of the elections.
“Once the commission has dealt with those objections, it will be in a position to indicate when it will announce the final results. The Commission, as we indicated yesterday, has seven days lawfully to declare the result. The Commission does not want to keep the country in angst, and for that reason it will release the result as soon as all objections have been dealt with,” Sheburi said.
“Lawfully, the commission cannot release or declare the results before 17:00 hours tomorrow afternoon,” he added.
The IEC has also warned political parties and candidates against declaring premature victories in individual wards, stressing that provisional results could change following objections or recounts.
IEC CEO Sy Mamabolo said that, as at 9am on Thursday, 23,444 of the 66,073 expected results slips had been scanned into the results system, while 22,983 had been captured.
Of these, 16,791 results slips, representing approximately 25% of the expected total, had undergone independent auditing.
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Results from 18 municipalities had been finalised by 9am, compared with seven municipalities at the same stage of the 2021 local government elections.
Mamabolo expressed concern about the circulation of unverified election results and posters claiming victories before the IEC had officially declared the outcomes.
He explained that duplicate results slips were completed after counting at each voting station. One copy was transported to a capturing site, while the other remained at the station as a public record of the provisional result.
“If it has not been altered or tampered with, treat it as a provisional result until such time that the commission announces the final result because that result could still be subject to an objection that may lead to a recount and that result changes lawfully,” Mamabolo said.
IEC Deputy Chair Janet Love said the commission was working with civil society organisations, the media and major social media platforms to combat election disinformation.
She encouraged the public to report suspicious content through the Real411 app rather than sharing unverified claims.
“We wish to do that again, to really urge people, as has been done today, to verify information, to check, to ensure that we don’t just repost things which are plainly mischief-making and many of them, in fact, are not even originating from within this country,” Love said.
The IEC said a detailed breakdown of voter participation, including figures for young people and first-time voters, would only be available once counting and verification had been completed.
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