Gauteng results slow

More than 18 hours after voting stations closed, just over 25 percent of votes in Gauteng had been captured and audited.

Thus far, 890 108 provincial ballot votes had been counted in Gauteng – the province with the highest voter numbers at 6 063 739 registered voters.

For now, the battle for Gauteng remained between the ANC, DA, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Freedom Front Plus (FF+).

The results looked promising for the ANC , which was currently leading the pack with 529 637 votes – equating to 59.50 percent of the provincial ballot. The DA received 234 607 votes (26.36 percent), the EFF 76 917 votes (8.64 percent) and the FF+ 13 303 votes (1.49 percent).

However, the IEC said it was too early to make any significant predictions.

A major reason for the low number of votes was that no data was available yet for the city of Johannesburg, the country’s most populous metropolitan area.

According to the Independent Electoral Commission, the delays in the availability of data were due to “internal checks” conducted before the information was released.

“The hold up in Johannesburg when the results are shown as audited, but not released… we hold it back for someone to confirm that there is absolutely no error committed,” said IEC chief electoral officer Mosotho Moepya.

Further, the IEC noted that voting in some voting districts such as Joubert Park in Joburg continued into the early hours of 8 May, adding that counting of votes at the station was only completed at 10.20am that day.

According to IEC chairperson Pansy Tlakula, Joubert Park was the largest voting district in the country with more than 10 000 registered voters.