<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>
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The Independent Democrats said on Thursday it went after South Africa’s youth vote by using innovations in technology to campaign to its voters, such as use of SMSes and the web. Speaking to the Mail & Guardian Online, ID leader Patricia de Lille claimed the party has a database of more than 90Â 000 cellphone numbers of its constituents.
DA ‘elated’ at turnout
<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>
South Africa’s unit trust industry saw total assets leap to R243-billion in the quarter to the end of March 2004, from R230-billion in the previous quarter, on the back of continuing strong inflows and impressive performances in many sectors for the 12-month period to the end of March.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>The Democratic Alliance says it is "elated" with the way the voting results have turned out so far and that the party is not surprised at the relative success of Patricia de Lille’s new Independent Democrats. Gibson said that the DA’s own internal polls predicted that the ID would in fact perform even better than they have so far performed.
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Despite being disillusioned about the lack of service delivery in their area, residents of Diepsloot, a sprawling settlement on the outskirts of Johannesburg, turned out in their thousands to cast their votes on Wednesday. The voting mood was also fairly upbeat in Alexandra township in Johannesburg.
Special Report: Elections 2004
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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
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The Pan Africanist Congress on Wednesday laughed off comments by African National Congress leader Thabo Mbeki that it was ”looking for other excuses” with its election complaints. Mbeki had said the Inkatha Freedom Party and the PAC were trying to discredit South Africa’s democracy because they knew they would not do well in the elections.
Special Report: Elections 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Slightly more than 45% of registered voters in the Western Cape had cast their vote by 2.30pm on Wednesday. An Independent Electoral Commission officer said there had been numerous complaints from political parties contesting the elections, and long queues had formed in areas such as Guguletu and Langa.
<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>
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While the media mayhem that attended South Africa’s first two democratic elections is undoubtedly a thing of the past, there was still a blizzard of flashlights when the country’s first citizen cast his ballot on Wednesday morning. Addressing journalsts after voting for the national and provincial legislatures, President Thabo Mbeki said, ”I think it’s now time for the people to speak.”
Two pilots were killed in the northern Free State when their gliders collided on Monday afternoon, police reported. The men, John McLachlan and Dieter Hiress of Welkom, were participating in a race with three other gliders in their group when the accident occurred.
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The Landless People’s Movement (LPM) has called on landless and poor people to boycott the elections on Wednesday. LPM spokesperson Mangaliso Kubheka said in a statement on Tuesday the boycott will ”deliver a resounding warning to political leaders over the country’s land crisis”.
Special Report: Elections 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday congratulated the Independent Electoral Commission on its readiness to hold Wednesday’s general election and urged political parties to do their part to ensure the poll is free and fair.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=34069">’No land, no vote'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=34047">De Lille ‘more popular’ than Leon</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34067">Tutu allays fears about ANC win</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34055">Eastern Cape ANC apologises to DA</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
Trapped beneath a 20-ton truck, two motorists spent their last moments alive watching emergency personnel frantically trying to rescue them in Pretoria on Tuesday. The runaway truck’s brakes failed, its unlicensed driver said, and it careered through seven sets of traffic lights, smashing five vehicles in its path.
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Mention disputes over party funding, and the image that might first come to mind is that of Republicans and Democrats in the United States, trading allegations about reliance on special interest groups. However, the matter also sparked controversy in South Africa recently, as the country prepared for its third democratic election.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille has emerged as the favourite opposition politician in South Africa, according to a Markinor survey. The survey also showed the ANC has the backing of 72,3% of registered voters.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk promised jobs, more police officers, teachers, the rapid roll-out of anti-retrovirals and the rights of parents in school governing bodies while touting family values at a rally at Eastridge, Mitchells Plain, on Monday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
One of South Africa’s most celebrated international sopranos, Marita Napier, died on Saturday in Cape Town. She was one of three South African-born opera singers who had sung lead roles at the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan and London’s Covent Garden.
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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
Firefighters managed to douse the flames at the Brenton-on-Sea hotel in Knysna on Sunday, but not before the building was razed and two chalets gutted. Speaking from the scene, Knysna fire chief Dries Pretorius said numerous other chalets were saved.
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The Democratic Alliance in the North West has challenged the African National Congress to show proof that 20 of its members had defected to the ruling party. DA spokesperson Barbara Harrison claimed that the ANC was busy with an election strategy to distract attention from a decade of failures and non-delivery.
Special Report: Elections 2004
The countrywide strike of airport baggage handlers, which started on December 18, has been resolved, the Congress of South African Trade Unions said on Thursday. Workers will get a 12% wage increase and a 2% performance incentive, and all workers dismissed during the strike will be reinstated.
You are a junior nurse and the specialist surgeon constantly makes suggestive advances, but you keep quiet for fear of recrimination — this is the sort of scenario a sexual harassment campaign aims to address at Groote Schuur hospital. The hospital launched its campaign on Thursday.
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The rest of Africa can learn much from South Africa’s election process, the visiting Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum said on Thursday. ”We have observed nine elections throughout the SADC since 1999 and realised how much other countries can learn from South Africa,” said the mission leader.
Special Report: Elections 2004
The messages sent out to South African youths by the government’s loveLife Aids prevention campaign are ”inadequate and dangerous”, says the African Christian Democratic Party. The campaign sends out mixed messages and causes passions to become ”inflamed by their explicit advertising with sexual images”, the ACDP said on Thursday.
Leading international drinks companies Heineken, Diageo and Namibia Breweries have finalised the shareholder agreements for their new joint venture company in South Africa, the companies announced on Thursday. The joint venture combines the sales, marketing and distribution businesses in South Africa of the three shareholders.
South Africa apologised to Rwanda on Wednesday for not ”crying out” loud enough when hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives in 100 days of genocide in that country in 1994. ”We did not cry out as loudly as we should have,” President Thabo Mbeki told a commemoration ceremony in the Rwandan capital of Kigali.
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The ministries of safety and security and justice appeared to be ”ministries of mayhem and anarchy”, a Mondeor resident who endorses the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. The Alive Campaign and the Suid-Afrika Teen Misdaad-Aksiegroep came out in a show of support for the DA in Johannesburg.
Special Report: Elections 2004
The South African Revenue Service (Sars) has requested the country’s four major commercial banks to introduce a payment validation system on each of their electronic banking applications to prevent incorrect electronic tax payments. Sars said on Wednesday First National Bank will be the first to begin in April.
One in 10 South Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 are HIV-positive — but there is hope, according to the findings of new survey, released on Wednesday. The 10,2% prevalence rate may amount to a stabilisation of infections in that age group, the survey report states.