IEC: End of count in sight
2004-04-16 12:15
Pretoria - With election results in three provinces finalised, and 90% of all votes counted, results should be completed by the end of Friday, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) announced on Friday morning.
"It looks like we will be wrapping up this election by the end of tomorrow, barring any unforeseen circumstances", said Mosotho Moepya, IEC deputy chief electoral officer, at a media briefing at the results centre in Pretoria.
The Northern Cape, Western Cape, and Mpumalanga are finalised, and Limpopo had only 20 more voting districts outstanding, said Moepya.
The slowest provinces were KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. The commission awaited feedback from 633 voting districts in KwaZulu-Natal, particularly in the Nongoma and Pongolo areas. In Gauteng, 342 districts were outstanding.
The IEC was finally willing to give some estimates on voter turnout. Moepya said it appeared to be about 76% nationally and 75% provincially, but he said they could not be precise until everything had been received.
He said 1.61% of the total votes had been spoilt: "This is really good going actually, one of the lowest we have had."
When asked about disputes, he insisted that all issues so far had been satisfactorily resolved. Even in the cases where the police had been brought in to investigate, the IEC was able to say things had been clarified, he said.
The opportunity to file objections would close at 21:00 on Friday evening, 48 hours after the voting stations closed, said Moepya.
A map of results by voting district showed the Western Cape and Northern Cape split fairly evenly between the Democratic Alliance and the African National Congress. The New National Party had held on to just a smattering of districts in these two provinces and none in the rest of the country.
In the Eastern Cape the United Democratic Party had a cluster of districts in the Umtata area, but the majority of the rest of the province was held by the ANC, with a few DA districts in the farming areas to the west.
In terms of area, the Inkatha Freedom Party held most of KwaZulu-Natal, especially in the north, but actual numbers have indicated that the ANC is in the lead in that province.
The North West, Limpopo, Northern Province, and the Free State were all almost completely dominated by ANC districts, and Gauteng was divided up quite randomly between the ANC and the DA.
The only other parties to lay claim to an entire voting district were the Freedom Front Plus, with one district in the Northern Cape, and the New Labour Party with one district in the Western Cape.
Moepya said all results were preliminary until certified by the IEC, which would happen sometime on Saturday or Sunday.
- SAPA