Progress has been made in finalising this week’s local government election results, with more than half of the results having been processed by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), keeping it on track to reach a target of pushing through 90% of the results by the end of Tuesday.
Addressing journalists at the IEC’s national results centre in Tshwane, chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said 55% of the 64 502 results expected had been finalised.
Leading the pack in vote counting is the Northern Cape, where 89% of the province’s results have been completed, followed by the Western Cape at 72% and the Eastern Cape at 70%.
The state of completion for the other six provinces ranges between 37% and 67%.
“We are still pursuing the target of reaching the 90% in the course of tonight. The number of completed municipalities now stands at 94. We will spare no effort [to ensure] that the majority of the 163 municipalities are completed within the planned time,” Mamabolo said on Tuesday evening.
Reaching the 90% mark will however still not give a clear indication of how this year’s voter turnout compares with that for the previous municipal elections in 2016.
“Projections can be done on the basis of what the status would be at that point. The commission will however, when it declares the results, give the official voter turnout in the elections,” Mamabolo said.
The Mail & Guardian reported earlier that by the end of Monday, more than 12.1-million people had voted, with data from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research pointing to a voter turnout of about 48%, a significant decline from 58% in 2016.
By Tuesday evening the IEC’s result dashboard showed the ruling ANC leading nationwide with 46.02% of the votes, translating to more than 5.2-million votes. In second place was the DA with 22.61% followed by the EFF with 9.91%, translating to 2.5-million and 1.1-million votes respectively.
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