FILE – The Electoral Commission is yet to confirm if the slow pace in the counting of votes overnight on Wednesday could be attributed to load shedding. Photographer: Dean Hutton/Bloomberg
Pretoria – The Electoral Commission of South Africa is yet to confirm if the slow pace in the counting of votes overnight on Tuesday could be attributed to load shedding.
On Tuesday, Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo indicated that the Commission was expecting some areas in the country to be highly affected by power outages.
By 7am on Wednesday, only 58 percent of votes were tallied.
This was in stark contrast to the IEC's assurance that all votes would have been counted by midnight.
Although Eskom halted its stage 2 load shedding schedule at 5am on Wednesday, it is unclear what the impact has been or if South Africans can expect another round of power outages.
The counting however continues as the IEC races to complete counting.
The latest figures on the live board at the National Results Operation Centre indicate that the ANC was still in the lead with the board reflecting the following figures:
ANC - 46.42%
DA - 22.25%
EFF - 10.09%
In terms of councils, the ANC held 75 of them thus far, the DA, 21 councils.
In Limpopo, the ANC had already surpassed the 60 percent mark
The same applied in the Eastern Cape, where the party was sitting with 65.53 percent of voter support.
In the Western Cape, the DA was still holding firmly to first place with 53.44 percent followed by the DA with 19.29 percent of voter support.
There are also about 35 hung municipalities with Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape and the City of Ekurhuleni in Gauteng being some of them.
The results that have trickled in so far have also been an indicator that parties may have to kick off serious coalition talks and some persuading to govern in some municipalities.
Political Bureau