By Sihle Mavuso
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) in KwaZulu-Natal says several recounts in major cities, including eThekwini and Msunduzi, have delayed the declaration of official election results in the province.
However, the commission has maintained that the results, together with municipal seat allocations, will be announced on Sunday at 5.30pm, come rain or shine.
Briefing the media in Durban on Friday, Provincial Electoral Officer Ntombifuthi Masinga said the province had captured 88% of the results at the time.
Masinga also said the IEC had received an objection from Abaqulusi in the north of the province and was considering it, while awaiting any further objections before the 5pm deadline on Friday.
“We, however, have eight municipalities where there were delays in the results capturing process for various reasons. One of them, eThekwini municipality, is simply the volumes that affected them, but there has been quite a handful of recounts in eThekwini municipality,” Masinga said.
She said the recounts were necessary to reconcile results slips with the total number of ballot papers issued during the election period, from the start of special voting on Monday to the final day of voting.
This included accounting for spoiled, invalid and valid ballots, which had to add up to the initial number of ballot papers issued to each voting station.
She stressed that recounts were necessary to ensure all parties were satisfied that the process was transparent and fair.
“So, if there is something that doesn’t add up, what we then do is, because those results slips are already in our capturing sites in our 44 municipalities that we have in the province, we then do a recount in the presence of the parties in those municipalities because party agents that would have been at voting stations are no longer available at the capturing site.
“Instead, we sit with our municipal party liaison committees, so that is the process that delayed eThekwini a bit. The same thing happened in Msunduzi, where we experienced delays because of the recounts. The difference is that most of the recounts were done at the stations,” Masinga added.
The announcement comes amid uncertainty over who will govern major cities such as eThekwini, uMhlathuze, Msunduzi, Newcastle, Ladysmith and Port Shepstone.
Although the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) was leading in these municipalities, it did not have the required majority to govern alone. The political picture could also change once the IEC completes the allocation of proportional representation (PR) seats.
Meanwhile, MKP leader Jacob Zuma declined to comment at the Durban High Court, where he was attending the handing down of judgment in his daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla’s discharge application.
Asked about his party’s performance in the elections, Zuma briefly replied: “We are on, right now,” before leaving.
While the MKP was making strong gains in eThekwini, the Midlands and the south of the province, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) continued to perform strongly in its traditional strongholds, including Ulundi and Nongoma in the north.
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