ANC headed for victory
2004-04-15 04:21
Cape Town - The African National Congress is headed for another comfortable election victory according to the latest results received from the Independent Electoral Commission's National Results Operations Centre on Thursday morning.
The latest overall, national results showed that the ANC led with 48 668 votes, followed by the Democratic Alliance with 18 214 votes and the New National Party with 2 472 votes.
This was however a minute sample of the votes cast by the 20.6 million people aged 18 and over who had registered to vote.
South Africa's third democratic election appears to generally have gone off smoothly with few major incidents.
Voting was marred at three polling stations by bomb scares - in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Durban - all of which proved to be hoaxes.
The Pretoria North police station, doubling as a polling station, was evacuated when it received a bomb threat from an anonymous caller just after 18:00. Nothing was found.
Shortly after voting started at the Durban City Hall, police received information of a bomb in the building, Durban police reported.
People were escorted out the building and the area was cordoned off, but again, nothing was found.
In the third incident, security was stepped up around Gauteng's elections results centre following reports of a bomb scare.
Members of the bomb disposal and dog units of the SA Police Service rushed to the centre on Wednesday morning when claims of a bomb surfaced, but nothing was found.
Apart from these, one of the more serious other incidents occurred in Botshabelo in the Free State, when four Democratic Alliance members were arrested and then released on bail of R100 each after being detained in cells for four hours.
Advocate Pieter Geldenhuys, responsible for organising their release, said he had to drive to Botshabelo before police would release the men.
DA MPL Darryl Worth and three other DA members allegedly drove into a voting station in a vehicle bearing a DA logo.
"Seventeen police officers and five cars surrounded the members in an American-style arrest. This is a complete over-reaction and an abuse of state power," said DA spokesperson Andries Botha.
Election rules dictate that no electioneering may take place at a voting station.
- SAPA