THE ANC is currently leading the pack in most municipalities across the country, followed closely by the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
According to IEC Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sy Mamabolo, by 7:30pm on Tuesday, at least 55% of the results had been finalised.
But while the ANC appeared to be performing extremely well in mainly rural areas in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Free State and Mpumalanga, it seemed to be struggling to make significant impact in big metros such as the City of Joburg, City of Tshwane and the Nelson Mandela Bay.
The ruling party lost the City of Joburg, the City of Tshwane and the Nelson Mandela Bay metro in the 2016 elections.
Currently, the only metro where the ANC is likely to win a metro with an outright majority is in the Buffalo City Municipality, Eastern Cape.
According to the IEC dashboard, as at 15:30pm with 26% of the votes complete in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, in the Eastern Cape, the ANC was leading with 69.66% of the vote, followed by the EFF at 12.62% while support for the DA stood at 10.4%.
In Limpopo, the ANC reclaimed the Modimolle-Mookgophong and Thabazimbi Municipalities, which it had lost in the 2016 municipal elections.
Last night, with 23% of the provincial votes counted, statistics showed that the ANC was leading in KwaZulu-Natal with 42.87% of the votes, followed by IFP with 26.12% and the DA with 10.64%.
In eThekwini Municipality, the ANC is still holding the majority of the votes with 54.39%, followed by the DA with 23.25%, and EFF with 8.34%.
In Umzimkhlu, the ANC received huge support with 80.74% votes, followed by the EFF with 9.71%.
The ANC is also taking the lead in Greater Kokstad, with 58.59% of the votes counted so far, followed by the EFF at 20.66% and the DA at 12.99%.
On Tuesday, DA declared victory with an outright majority in in the municipality of uMngeni in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, taking 13 of the council’s 25 seats.
The DA also scored a major victory in the Kouga Local Municipality, Eastern Cape, and Midvaal Local Municipality, Gauteng.
“Clearly, the people of uMngeni have had enough of the neglect and decay that have decimated their towns over the past two decades, queueing for hours yesterday at voting stations across the municipality to make their mark for the DA difference,” said DA leader John Steenhuisen.
“These residents are the heroes of this election effort, and we thank them for their patience and perseverance. Future generations in uMngeni will owe them a debt of gratitude for halting the slide and setting the municipality on a different course.”
The IEC’s Mamabolo said last night that the results of at least 94 municipalities had been completed.
He emphasised that the commission would “spare no effort that the majority of the 163 municipalities are completed” by Thursday.
“The Northern Cape has completed 89% of its results, followed by Western Cape at 72% and in third position comes the Eastern Cape at 70%. The rest of the provinces completion rate range between 37% and 67%,” said Mamabolo.
“At the level of capturing 78% of results are already in the system waiting [for] scanning and auditing. We are still pursuing the target of reaching the 90% still in the course of tonight.”
IEC Commissioner Mosotho Moepya said the commission is dealing with matters related to the absence of some registered voters from the voters’ roll during Monday’s Election Day.
“I accept that there were people who were not on the voters’ roll…those that we knew and we had records of, we have included on there and we indicated that out of the 240 000, 140 000 of them we can account for by name of having come and having voted,” said Moepya.
- Inside Politics
