The election race in KwaZulu-Natal closed in on the halfway mark on Thursday evening with no indication whether the African National Congress or the Inkatha Freedom Party would win the province.
The ANC, which has made serious inroads into the province over the past years, was leading the result with 43,2% followed by the IFP with 39,2%.
The Democratic Alliance, which may tip the province into the IFP’s hands through its Coalition for Change with the IFP, was at 9,46%.
Provincial electoral officer Mawethu Mosery told reporters in Durban that it was not known when the final figures would be available as many municipal electoral offices were still counting ballots that would then have to be audited before being released.
Political analyst Nhlanhla Mtaka said it was difficult at this stage to determine who would win the poll because votes were still coming in from the huge Durban Metropolitan and rural areas.
”Anything can happen,” he said.
Past polls have shown that the ANC generally has support in the urban areas while the IFP reigns in the rural areas.
However, this year’s election campaigning took the two parties into each other’s territories.
After the 1999 election the ANC and IFP formed a coalition government in the province because both parties failed to gain 50% voter support.
After legislation allowing MPs and MPLs to cross the floor to a party of their choice without losing their seats was approved last year, relations between the two parties soured.
Preliminary election results in the province showed that just more than 60% of the voters had cast their ballots by 9pm on Wednesday.
About two million of the province’s 3,8-million registered voters had gone to the polls.
Allegations of political violence and vote rigging continued in the province with the IFP threatening to declare that the election was not free and fair.
More than 100 complaints were lodged with the provincial Independent Electoral Commission.
Incidents included the shooting of a DA councillor in the Folweni area on the South Coast, security personnel evacuating ANC party agents in Ulundi in northern KwaZulu-Natal and the IFP laying a charge of corruption against an Independent Electoral Commission official after she was allegedly found in possession of voter registration stickers in Inanda, north of Durban.
The province also had another bomb scare.
The Durban Magistrate’s Court was evacuated on Thursday morning and closed for the day after the scare.
The Minority Front is in fourth place at 2,41% of the vote and the African Christian Democratic Party has 1,92%.
The Independent African Movement is the loser so far at 0,07%.
Tony Leon upbeat about KwaZulu-Natal victory
The DA believes it is set to form a government in KwaZulu-Natal with the IFP and to be the official opposition party in every other province.
DA leader Tony Leon was speaking at an election results celebration in Johannesburg on Thursday night.
He said the DA would now ”look far more like South Africa as a whole than it has at any time in our party’s history”.
He told a cheering cocktail party that the New National Party’s poor performance had resulted from it having done ”the worst thing one can do in politics. That is to argue with the voters.
”The verdict of the electorate is often not merciful but it is always just,” he said.
Leon added: ”They sold out to the voters and the voters took their revenge.”
He wish Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats party well in Parliament.
”They must now prove that they can represent the interests of their voters.”
In KwaZulu-Natal, he said the DA would drive forward its agenda for positive change, creating jobs, fighting crime, combating HIV/Aids and lifting people out of poverty.
”We have been in an invitation coalition [with the IFP] for the past two years,” Leon said.
”We don’t agree with everything. However, there are more agreements than disagreements in the coalition agreement.”
Leon said that it appeared DA support had grown in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Gauteng as well as among Indian and coloured voters in the Western Cape.
”Among Africans it has been more modest,” he said.
”Our support in black communities has grown since 1999, but we still have much more work to do.”
He stressed the DA’s mission was to build an alternative to the ANC government.
”Not because we dislike the ANC, they are our political rivals, not our enemies. I am sure our maturing democracy requires a sensible relationship between the government and the opposition.” — Sapa
ANC expects ‘late surge’
Leon laughs off ID ‘threat’
Kortbroek labours on
Nine parties set for Parliament
Special Report: Elections 2004