By Luvuyo Mjekula
Makana is one of 11 municipalities in the Eastern Cape where result capturing had been completed by yesterday, with the declaration of results set to be done tomorrow (Sunday), the Electoral Commission of South Africa has confirmed.
The others were Dr Beyers Naude, Blue Crane, Sunday’s River, Koukamma, Great Kei, Amahlathi, Ngqushwa, Intsika Yethu, Walter Sisulu and Umzimvubu.
“We have finalized capturing and auditing in those 11 municipalities. There is nothing outstanding – there are no objections and we don’t have to do any verifications,” provincial electoral officer Kayakazi Magudumana told journalists late yesterday.
The only objection that had been recorded was from the DA in Nelson Mandela Bay, pertaining to alleged discrepancies on result slips at three voting stations. The party wanted an investigation.
Magudumana said because the province did not handle objections, the matter would be handed over to the IEC.
Makana had more than 44 000 registered for the 2024 general election.
Grocott’s Mail reported yesterday that the African National Congress (ANC) was in the lead in Makana, ahead of the DA and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
As per detailed results on the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) website, of the 44 350 registered voters in the national ballot, 22 912 had voted and of those, 11 628 or 51.41% had voted for the ANC.
The DA followed with 5 083 votes or 22.47% while 3 378 people (14.93%) voted for the EFF. The Patriotic Alliance (602 votes or 2.66%), umkhonto we Sizwe (289 votes or 1.28%), the United Democratic Movement (183 or 0.81%) and Rise Mzansi (124 votes or 0.55%) were the only other parties who had breached the 100-vote threshold. At total of 292 votes were deemed spoilt.
In the provincial poll, Makana Municipality recorded 23 127 votes that were cast, of which 22 929 were valid while 198 were spoilt votes.
As at late yesterday, the ANC had 50.67% or 11 617 votes, followed by the DA with 5 459 votes (23.81%) and the EFF with 3 297 votes or 14.38%.
Other parties to receive significant votes were the Patriotic Alliance, ActionSA, UDM, umkhonto we Sizwe, the African Transformation Movement and Azapo.
There had been similar outcomes in the regional ballot in Makana, with the ANC leading with 51.21%, followed by the DA at 23.64%, the EFF at 14.14%.
According to a media statement from the provincial IEC yesterday on the counting and capturing process reaching its conclusion, the commission said it was pulling all the stops to ensure the finalisation of the capturing and auditing of the results for the elections and remained on course to complete the process imminently.
As indicated earlier, the IEC reiterated that counting at all voting stations was complete and they had all the results at their local offices. The process underway was capturing them on their system for tallying and seat allocation. “So far, a total percentage of 71.76 results have been captured,” the IEC said yesterday.
The progress relating to the capturing of the results per province was as follows by late yesterday:
• EASTERN CAPE is at 92.13% with 4485 of 4 868 Voting Districts completed.
• FREE STATE is at 95.52% with 1 515 of 1 586 Voting Districts completed.
• GAUTENG is at 75.33% with 2 107 of 2 797 Voting Districts completed.
• KWAZULU-NATAL is at 75.37% with 3 749 of 4 974 Voting Districts completed.
• MPUMALANGA is at 91.94% with 1 665 of 1 811 Voting Districts completed.
• NORTHERN CAPE is at 100% with 730 of 730 Voting Districts completed.
• LIMPOPO is at 80.78% with 2 598 of 3 216 Voting Districts completed.
• NORTH WEST is at 88.61% with 1 540 of 1 738 Voting Districts completed.
• WESTERN CAPE is at 88.99% with 1 399 of 1 572 Voting Districts completed
The commission reminded South Africans that the ballots are counted at the voting station where they are cast. “At all times, this is done in the presence of political party agents, independent candidate agents, and observers, who monitor the entire counting and results process.”
The results are available in real time on their website (www.elections.org.za).
The statement further said the Commission regretted the incident yesterday morning when the leader boards at the results operation centres and their website could not display the results. “We wish to emphasise that our system did not crash and no data was compromised. The Commission went into the elections with a full IT plan, which include a back-up and recovery in case it is needed. This situation has not arisen.”
The incident involved the activation of a necessary control not to display to leaderboards which is a feature of the result system. Result capturing and other result collation activities proceeded without interruption, the Commission said.
