<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>There remains uncertainty about which parties will rule KwaZulu-Natal after an inconclusive result from Wednesday’s provincial election — but the Inkatha Freedom Party swept its traditional capital in Ulundi with 93,6%.
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President Thabo Mbeki has again said the African National Congress will not seek to make any changes to the country’s Constitution. The ANC looks set to get a two-thirds majority, which has sparked fears in some quarters that the party may seek to change the Constitution.
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As the African National Congress passed the 10-million vote mark on Friday, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said that the turnout for the third democratic elections had been an impressive 76,9%. At present the ANC has 69,6% of the votes counted so far.
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The respective strong showings of the African National Congress and Democratic Alliance in Wednesday’s general election may sharpen the cold war between the two parties in future, independent analyst Aubrey Matshiqi said on Thursday evening. ”The question is what that kind of polarisation portends for the future of the country,” he said.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>With just over 88,2% of votes captured by early Friday morning, the African National Congress has nearly garnered 70% of the votes. With the preliminary count updated at 3am, the ruling party was heading the national race with 9,39-million of the votes counted, which translates into 69,67% — continuing to make gains on its apparent two-thirds majority.
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Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Party and the New National Party, led by Marthinus van Schalkwyk, appeared to be the big losers as the final counting for the 2004 polls drew closer on Thursday night. By 9.30pm on Thursday the UDM stood at 6,96% in its Eastern Cape stronghold, not even half of the 13,6% it got in 1999.
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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 Democratic Alliance, which may tip the province into the IFP’s hands, was at 9,46%.
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The leader of the Democratic Alliance, Tony Leon, was unperturbed by reporters’ questions about the apparent success of the Independent Democrats in the preliminary election results released on Thursday. ”If they [the ID] were expecting to be the official opposition, they won’t get that,” he said.
Special Report: Elections 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>The African National Congress is expecting a "late surge" of ANC votes as the elections results stream in. ANC spokesperson Steyn Speed told the <i>Mail & Guardian Online</i> on Thursday that the ANC expected the results for the official opposition Democratic Alliance to decline further as the day goes by.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Nine political parties out of the 21 parties that contested Wednesday’s election at a national level are likely to be represented in Parliament. The African National Congress was on Thursday afternoon heading towards a pivotal 70%, followed by the incumbent official opposition Democratic Alliance at about 15%.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
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The election in KwaZulu-Natal was a neck-and-neck race between the Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress on Thursday. The counting of the votes has been slow in the province due to rigorous auditing of the electronic capturing of votes.
Special Report: Elections 2004
The Independent Democrats, contesting its first election on Wednesday, surpassed the long-established New National Party in early poll counts on Thursday morning. By mid-morning, the ID had garnered 123 292 votes or 2,24% of the votes counted, putting them in fourth place. The NNP was in fifth place with 121 928 votes, or 2,21%.
"What the third democratic election has emphatically indicated is that the country is well on its way to being a mature democracy. The fact that, when we compare the electoral process from 1994 up to now, things are generally getting better, says volumes about the country, voters, political parties, politicians, civil society and many other sectors of society." Thabisi Hoeane reflects on the 2004 elections.
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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.
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Allegations of political violence and vote rigging continued in KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday morning. Incidents included the shooting of a Democratic Alliance councillor, security forces evacuating African National Congress party agents, and the Inkatha Freedom Party laying another complaint of irregularities with election authorities.
KwaZulu-Natal: Two-million voted
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As expected, the race for control of the South African provinces of the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal remains tight. In the Western Cape, with 23% of the votes counted, the African National Congress was only slightly ahead of the official opposition Democratic Alliance, with figures indicating that a hung legislature could result.
Special Report: Elections 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Initial results from South Africa’s national election released early on Thursday morning indicated that the African National Congress (ANC) was heading for an unsurprising victory of near two-thirds of the vote, with 63,77%. Working off a low base of votes counted at 16%, the official opposition Democratic Alliance, with 19,75%, appears to be faring far more strongly than in the 1999 national election.
Swazis tired of hearing their country condemned for having a traditional African monarchy for its governing system are countering that this very culture makes Swaziland a unique place any tourist would want to visit. Swaziland’s new tourism board wants to reverse the declining fortunes of the national tourism industry.
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Police were investigating claims by the Inkatha Freedom Party that African National Congress supporters were seen pasting voter registration stickers into the identity documents of voters in KwaZulu-Natal, the Independent Electoral Commission said on Wednesday afternoon.
Special Report: Elections 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>South Africa’s third democratic election was running smoothly late on Wednesday afternoon at the almost 17 000 voting stations around the country, despite long queues and some complaints from parties in the Western Cape, a bomb scare in Gauteng and allegations of fraud in KwaZulu-Natal. Read it all in our continually updated election event rundown.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34154">Diepsloot, Alex residents make their mark</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34151">Western Cape voters out in force</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34145">PAC laughs off Mbeki’s comments</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34148">ANC activists ‘caught red-handed'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34135">Queue talk: What voters are saying</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>The elation that marked the 1994 elections was mostly absent on Johannesburg’s West Rand on Wednesday, 10 years later. Voting got off to a punctual start and queues, although long, did not resemble the kilometres of people waiting to cast their ballots in the first election. Several people in the queues commented on the elections.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Although long queues were reported across the country on Wednesday morning, South Africa’s third general elections got off to a smooth start, with no major logistical problems reported, says Independent Electoral Commission chairperson Dr Brigalia Bam.
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Long queues could be seen snaking around voting stations across the country on Wednesday as South Africans went to the polls in the country’s third democratic election. Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu cast his ballot in Milnerton near Cape Town and said: ”Most countries degenerate into dictatorships after their first elections. We are disproving that. We are taking it in our stride”.
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South Africa’s ruling African National Congress is poised for a landslide victory in elections on Wednesday which could extend the party’s control over all nine of the country’s provinces. President Thabo Mbeki cast his vote at the Colbyn polling station in Pretoria at 7.05am.
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At least 99% of the 20,6-million South Africans who registered as voters are expected to turnout to make their crosses on polling day, the Independent Electoral Commission said on Monday — provided it did not rain.
Special Report: Elections 2004
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Inkatha Freedom Party deputy national chairperson Musa Zondi on Monday denied any knowledge of a pamphlet claiming that Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota would be the next premier if the African National Congress won the election in KwaZulu-Natal.
Special Report: Elections 2004
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Claims that Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota will be KwaZulu-Natal’s premier after the election are not true, African National Congress provincial leader S’bu Ndebele said on Sunday at a rally in KwaMashu. Ndebele said the claims — in a pamphlet circulating in the northern parts of the province — shocked him.
Special Report: Elections 2004
Two African National Congress activists were killed and another injured after being abducted from a late night church service at Mqedandaba, near Estcourt in KwaZulu-Natal, ANC provincial spokesperson Mtholephi Mthimkhulu said on Saturday.
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Ten years after South Africa turned its back on apartheid with its first fully democratic elections, the country returns to the polls this week for elections that are certain to sweep President Thabo Mbeki and the African National Congress back into power.
Special Report: Elections 2004
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The ruling African National Congress (ANC) will win ”decisive” support in next week’s general elections, South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday, adding a ”great mood of optimism about the future” had swept the country.
Special Report: Elections 2004