IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo addressed the media during a breifing on Wednesday night. Photo: Timothy Bernard/African News Agency (ANA)
Pretoria – All results from the 2021 local government elections are expected to be completed through tonight with the commitment that all municipalities will have an election result by daybreak.
In a media briefing held by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), the chief electoral office Sy Mamabolo said that the level of capturing already in the system awaiting scanning and auditing was at 99.3%.
Mamabolo said they were committed to providing results by the early hours of Thursday morning.
“I don’t have a time frame, I have a commitment that by daybreak there will be results in all municipalities in the country,” he said.
Mamabolo also noted the “slowness" in data capturing in eThekwini, but said they have since ”caught up“.
Progress on the relations to the finalisation of results now stands at 89.9% of expected results at 8pm on Wednesday evening.
Of the 64 062 results captured, 62 539 have been audited and 58 956 have been scanned into an image and is available.
The completion rate in the Northern Cape is 99.9%, Eastern Cape at 93.2%, North West at 95.2%, Western Cape at 88.8%, Mpumalanga at 91.6%, Gauteng at 90.7% and the Free State at 98.6%.
The completion rate in the rest of the provinces range between 83.9% and 88%.
Mamabolo told the media that there were many lessons that they can immediately identify, “most obvious” being to never attempt to do an election of this magnitude in 42 days.
“Our perennial advice would be don’t do it. It’s dangerous and may lead to disputes that may be very difficult to resolve,” he said.
Speaking on the voter management devices (VMD), he said it was mainstay equipment for this election that gave the IEC abilities that they may not have had.
“It was a fundamental check and balance and control measure in the electoral process.
“The VMD technology is the future. All we have to do is deal with glitches and sharpen training on the machine,” he said.
Mamabolo said they will have to move forward and improve the proficiency of the use of the equipment.
“It was a very important national investment,” Mamabolo said.
kailene.pillay@inl.co.za
Political Bureau