Preliminary election results in hotly contested KwaZulu-Natal show that just over 60% of the province’s voters cast their ballots on Wednesday.
Provincial electoral officer Mawethu Mosery told reporters in Durban on Thursday that around two-million of the province’s 3,8-million registered voters had gone to the polls.
Around 20% of the vote has been audited and released. He said around 70% of the votes had been counted but their release was being delayed due to rigorous auditing of the capturing of votes.
It had also taken a while for some stations to get lists of results to municipal electoral officers where they were being captured.
However, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) does have all the result slips.
Allegations of political violence and vote rigging continued in the province on Thursday morning.
More than 100 complaints were lodged with the provincial IEC on Wednesday.
Asked to explain specific allegations, Mosery said he did not have details and would comment later in the day.
The latest incident reported to journalists was that two ballot boxes had gone missing in Creighton in the Midlands. Police spokesperson Director Balla Naidoo said the boxes contained special votes and went missing after polls closed. One box was discovered along the side of the road in the area and police were waiting for IEC officials to arrive at the scene because they were not allowed to open the box.
The other one is still missing.
Other incidents in Kwazulu-Natal include the non-fatal shooting of a Democratic Alliance councillor and his wife in the Folweni area on the South Coast early on Thursday, and the evacuation by security forces in Ulundi of about 30 ANC party agents after they were threatened by people wielding traditional weapons and firearms.
In Inanda, the IFP reported that it had laid a charge of corruption against an Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) officer because she was allegedly found in possession of registration stickers on Wednesday.
More than 40 ex-army soldiers will appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court later in the day under the Illegal Gatherings Act.
The group was arrested on Tuesday in a park in the city on suspicion that they might disrupt the poll. – Sapa