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The DA was slightly ahead of the ANC in Johannesburg with 49.96

percent of the votes, compared to the ANC’s 43.93, according to results out by 1.30pm on Thursday.

By 1.30pm the party had 168,162 votes and the ANC 147,857.

However, this was after the votes of only 170,386 people were tallied. There were 2,010,121 registered voters in the city.

The Inkatha Freedom Party so far received the third highest number of votes, 5334 or 1.58 percent.

The City of Johannesburg, the country’s richest metro, recently came under fire over billing issues. Outgoing mayor Amos Masondo was criticised after he said the over-billing of hundreds of residents did not amount to a crisis.

via ANC behind DA in Joburg – Gauteng – IOL | Breaking News | South Africa News | World News | Sport | Business | Entertainment | IOL.co.za.

The African National Congress enjoyed a significant lead in Nelson Mandela Bay as the results of the municipal elections began trickling in on Thursday morning, the SABC reported.

With 24 of the 246 voting districts declared, the ANC had a healthy lead with 74%.

The Democratic Alliance had 17% of the votes in the region.

The Congress of the People and the United Democratic Front were neck-and-neck with 3% each.

Source: Mail and Guardian

The African National Congress was “very disappointed” over losing Midvaal in Gauteng to the Democratic Alliance and needed to work harder in minority areas, the party’s secretary general said at the IEC’s results centre in Pretoria on Thursday.

“The ANC must work harder, we are not doing well in the minority areas,” Gwede Mantashe said as election results started coming in. “We are sorry we didn’t take it … we really wanted it.”

He said the ANC needed to “invest more time” in areas such as Eldorado Park in southern Johannesburg, which had “shifted” its vote. Mantashe said the party needed new campaigns in areas in which it was weak.

The ANC had garnered 62% of the 14,3-million local government election votes counted by 9am on Thursday morning.

Source: Mail and Guardian

The first ward to be declared by the Independent Electoral Commission in the 2011 local government election has changed hands from the DA to the ANC, SABC news reported on Thursday.

A ward at Thembelihle in the Northern Cape was won by Annetjie Kywe of the ANC with almost 49% of the vote. In 2006, the DA won 52% of the vote and the ANC won 47%.

There are seven seats in the Thembelihle Municipality and some 8 000 people are registered voters in that local council.

This was the first of 4 277 wards in the country to be declared, SABC reported.

Source: News24

The South African Election is in full swing and it seems it’s business as usual with regards corruption.

Pretoria – The mighty ANC was on Saturday given a psychological blow when the final election results confirmed that it had lost its two-thirds majority.

Jacob Zuma’s party received 65.9% of the vote -the ANC’s weakest performance since the first democratic elections in 1994. That’s almost 4% less than in 2004.

The ANC’s Jeff Radebe said “We are very satisfied. It is a strong victory, we even got more than a million more votes than in 1994.”

He went on to say they are in ‘no way’ dissapointed. Seeing as this is the largest turn out since 1994 with many more voters casting their ballots than in the preceeding two elections, coupled with the fact than an increased population brings about an increased voter pool, a mere million more votes than 1994 doesn’t bode too well for the ruling party.

Analysts however, took a different view to the result than the ANC has taken publically. While this election victory may seem overwhelming, there are a few things that the opposition can be happy about.

As Professor Steven Friedman, a political analyst, says:

“This (the loss of the two-thirds majority) is a psychological victory for opposition parties and purely of symbolic value. The ANC will not admit it in public, but it shows they will have to work harder to retain voters.”

The ANC spent at least R200m on its campaign and more than 11 million people voted for them.

The DA got almost 17% support and Cope just over 7%.

The support the DA got this time around cannot be sneezed at, at close to 20% of the national vote, the opposition is growing and now it seems almost one in five of our demographic is voting for the official opposition.

Professor Sipho Seepe, another political commentator, said a DA government in the Western Cape was a threat to the ANC.

“The ANC will have to do better, because if the DA does well, voters will say ‘maybe we should give them (the DA) more provinces’.”

Seventy-seven percent of registered South African voters turned up to cast their votes in the 2009 election, according to results released at the IEC centre in Pretoria.

Voter turnout in all but one province was above 70 percent. In the Limpopo 69,62 percent of the registered voters turned up to vote.

Nationally 23,181,997 registered to vote, a record high number, according to the IEC.

Mpumalanga had the highest voter turnout, with 1,363,836 or 80,38 percent of the 1,696,705 registered voters actually casting their ballots.

In the Eastern Cape, 3,056,559 voters registered to participate and 2,344,098 (76,69 percent) of these turned up at the polls.

The Free State saw 1,388,588 voters registered and 1,069,127 (76,99 percent) actually voting.

In Gauteng, 5,555,159 voters registered and 4,391,699 (79,06 percent) actually voted while in KwaZulu Natal 2,256,073 voters registered and 1,570,592 (69,62 percent) turned up to cast their ballots.

In the North West 1,564,357 voters registered and 1,135,701 or 72,60 percent actually voted. In the Northern Cape, 554,900 voters registered with 421,490 (75,96 percent) while in the Western Cape 2,634,439 voters registered and 2,049,097 (77,78 percent) actually voted. – Sapa

The African National Congress has won the South African General Elections for 2009 and will rule the country for another 5 years. The party has announced it is happy with its performance in the election despite missing a two-thirds majority by a whisker.

ANC spokesperson Ishmael Mnisi said the party did not need such a majority and never said it wanted one.

“We have always been very clear that we wanted a decisive win… The ANC never called for a two-thirds majority, we are quite happy with the mandate the people have given us,” he said from the centre after IEC chief electoral officer, Pansy Tlakula announced that the vote count had been completed.

The ANC received a 65.90 percent win of the 17,680,729 valid votes cast. It received the support of 11,650,748 voters.

The Democratic Alliance received 16.66 percent of votes with 2,945,829 South Africans backing the party.

The Congress of the People received 7.42 percent with 1,311,027 votes.

The emergence of COPE, a party headed by former ANC chairperson Mosieua Lekota and former Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa, had served only to galvanise the ANC. That said, the ANC now have 5 years to perform or face stiffer opposition next time around from a viable black run opposition party.

Mnisi said the party would now wait for processes, which will see Zuma placed in the presidency and his cabinet selected. After that they would get to work on improving service delivery.

Zuma and incumbent president, his deputy, President Kgalema Motlanthe, are tol visit the results centre later on Saturday when IEC chairperson Brigalia Bam is expected to formally announce the results.

EArlier this afternoon, the count reached the 16 million mark, totalling 16,025,818 shortly before 5pm. The number was registered voters is 23,282,997.

This indicated that the IEC was 70 percent of the way through processing the results.

The ANC remained in pole position with 10,479,367 votes (66.29) followed by the Democratic Alliance with 1,184,456 votes (16.21 percent).

Cope failed to make good on its assertion that it had severely dented the ANC’s grip on the Eastern Cape, by trailing far behind the ruling party’s 1,609,926 (69.70 percent) votes with its 307,437 votes (13.31 percent).

It had, however, dislodged the DA’s position as chief opposition in that province, with the DA receiving 230,187 votes (9.97 percent).

The battle for the Western Cape is all but won by Helen Zille’s DA, which received 788,008 votes (50.38 percent).

The ANC is in the second position with 481,998 votes (30.81 percent), followed by Cope’s 138,819 votes.

Nationally, the Inkatha Freedom Party was in fourth position with 703,885 votes (4.45 percent), followed by the ID with 146,919 votes (0.093 percent).

The counting of votes slowed down drastically on Friday morning, with only 435 932 tallied since midnight.

By 06:25, the ANC had 8 363 065 votes, or 66.9% of the 12 500 704 votes counted.

The DA was on 15.95% with 1 993 238 votes, while Cope had 7.61% with 951 522 votes. The IFP was in fourth place at 3.9% with 487 292 votes. The PAC trails at 0.28% with just 35 886 votes.

The ANC has clinched the Eastern Cape, the only province where all the votes have been counted.

All eyes are now on the Western Cape and Northern Cape, where counting will probably be finalised early on Friday morning.

It is expected that the entire counting process will be finalised by midday on Friday with the results of KwaZulu-Natal expected to come in last.

Latest South African Election Results UPDATED HERE.

The ANC is close to clinching a two-thirds majority, with 65.75 percent of the national vote going to the ruling party as of 2.26pm. So far more than 6,9 million national ballots have been counted.

The DA’s total has slid down to below 17 percent and COPE’s total crept up to over 8 percent.

The IFP has about 3 percent of the vote, and the ID is trailing them with 1.3 percent.

The ANC has a secure lead in all but the Western Cape, where the DA has secured just under 50 percent of the vote. The ANC is at around 30%.

In the KZN, another battleground province, the ANC is winning with more than 65 percent of the vote. The IFP trails them with about 24 percent of the vote.

COPE has secured the largest number of their votes in the Eastern Cape at 13% and the Northern Cape at 17%.

Latest South African Election Results UPDATED HERE.

The vote count climbed above six million, according to results released by the IEC in Pretoria shortly before 13:00 on Wednesday.

The African National Congress had over 60% of these with 3 988 079.

The Democratic Alliance is in second place with 1 097 045 votes.

The Congress of the People remained in the third spot with 499 651 votes.

A total of 6 232 428 votes had been counted by 13:00, which was 27% of the 23 181 997 voters registered nationally for Wednesday’s polls.

The Inkatha Freedom Party was in fourth place with 175 763 votes, with the Independent Democrats following with 86 585 votes.

The United Democratic movement followed with 75 402 votes.

Latest South African Election Results UPDATED HERE.

Voter turnout is currently sitting at 77 percent with vote counts from 12,402 districts still outstanding, Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) chairwoman Brigalia Bam said today.

Briefing the media in Pretoria, Bam said votes from 7,332 voting districts had been counted by just after noon.

“We will only know the total turnout probably in another two days’ time,” she said.

There were 19,726 voting stations in South Africa and nine voting stations overseas.

More than 23 million South Africans had registered to vote in the national election.

The IEC earlier estimated that with growing voter enthusiasm the overall turnout would be about 80 percent.

Latest South African Election Results UPDATED HERE.

More than 5.2 million votes had been counted by 11.30am today according to the latest results at the election centre in Pretoria.

The African National Congress had 3,434,611 votes. The Democratic Alliance trailed with 988,923 votes followed by the Congress of the People with 433,261 votes.

The number counted is around 18 percent of the 23,181,997 voters registered to take part in Wednesday’s polls.

It is not yet known how many votes were cast.

The Inkatha Freedom Party was in fourth place with 141,975 of the votes.

The Independent Democrats follow with 81,188 votes.

Latest South African Election Results UPDATED HERE.

More than four million votes had been counted by 10.30am today according to the latest results at the election centre in Pretoria.

The African National Congress had 2,687,044 votes thus far, with the Democratic Alliance trailing with 784, 392 votes followed by the Congress of the People with 319, 807 votes.

The number counted is around 18 percent of the 23,181,997 voters registered to take part in Wednesday’s polls.

It is not yet known how many votes were cast.

The Inkatha Freedom Party was in fourth place with 110,707 of the votes.

The Independent Democrats following with 69,555 votes.

Latest South African Election Results UPDATED HERE.

“This was possibly the best result we could have had in the Western Cape”

This was said by a senior ANC official, who understandably did not want to be identified.

The Western Cape is the one province in the country where the early results show that the ANC is losing handsomely.

All the support for the Congress of the People in the province came almost exclusively from ANC voters.

Back to the drawing board

He Continued:

“If we had got closer to the DA figure, we would have being trying to put another coalition together, but now we are forced to go back to the drawing board, to go back to the grassroots, to build our organisation in the traditional way, and to heal it.”

With 600 000 votes counted on Thursday morning, from the 2.6 million-strong electorate in the province, the DA was holding 53.84%, and the ANC 27.3%.

Latest South African Election Results UPDATED HERE.

More than three million votes had been counted in the national elections by 08:30 on Thursday morning.

The results put the ruling African National Congress in a commanding lead with 2 078 352 votes

A total of 3 304 062 votes had been counted.

But it is still not known how many of the 23 181 997 registered voters turned out at polling stations.

The Democratic Alliance was in second place, taking 636 637 of the votes counted.

In third place was the Congress of the People, with 251 200 votes.

The Inkatha Freedom Party took fourth position with 86 503 votes followed by the Independent Democrats with 54 852.

The Freedom Front Plus followed with 39 055 votes, while the A Party trailed in last with 572 votes.

In the provincial election results, the ANC was leading in eight out of nine provinces. The DA was ahead in the Western Cape with 287 185 of the votes and the ANC in second place with 147 616 votes.

Latest South African Election Results UPDATED HERE.

Well I’ve done my bit today. I woke up late, went to an election station and stood in a massive queue for about 10 minutes before deciding I’d come back later. Last time around I voted towards the end of the day and simply walked in and out. My general perception this time around is that there will be a larger voter turnout than the previous Election in South Africa.

That’s a great thing. I find there is much more awareness this time and my peers are more excited and more motivated to vote. That said there are still the odd few who seem to think it’s a joke not to vote, some using hangovers as excuses, some just plain lazy. Lets hope these aren’t the people moaning over the next four years if things don’t go their way.

I have moved since I registered to vote and had to fill in a rather confusing form to allow for me to vote in my new district. There must be someone somewhere who specialises in fucking official forms up!

This one had a spot for a fingerprint which wasn’t required, as well as the confusing sentence ‘Address where you normally reside’. Surely just ‘Address’ would have worked better?

Other than that, the official who jokingly told me that I needed to pay R50 cos I was at another station was mildly irritating. That’s a little bit in poor taste there fella.

I am glad I delayed the vote till this afternoon as I was in and out in 5 minutes, confusing form and irritating official et al.

I’ve been scanning the papers for initial reactions, and other than a few scare stories of villagers being told to vote ANC and ballot papers being strewn across a street someplace, it all seems to be going along smoothly. It must be rememberd that this is a massive logistical task and there will be the odd hiccup here and there. As a citizen, I’m happy with how it has been conducted so far.

Now we wait for the results.