Pretoria - The Eastern Cape provincial elections were credible, provincial electoral officer Thami Mraji said on Thursday.
“In my opinion, the national and provincial elections of 2014 have been credible, free, and fair in spite of the many challenges that were encountered,” he said in a statement.
Problems reported on Wednesday had been resolved. These included national ballot papers that could not be scanned as they did not have barcodes.
“Some party representatives in Mthatha were not satisfied with the explanation to transcribe the results onto a new result slip with a barcode, although the original results slip was going to be kept with the new one,” Mraji said.
Parties complained that ballot boxes were not correctly closed with the official Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) seal in Queenstown. He said from the beginning of the election process the IEC had a good relationship with the political parties.
“We appreciate their support and understanding of the electoral processes which assisted in resolving the issues that came up during the election period.”
He said provincial election results were expected to be available later in the day, but the final, official results would be announced in Pretoria on Saturday.
Counting in 4615 voting stations was completed early on Thursday morning.
The results capturing process had been audited at the provincial results centre in East London, Mraji said.
Sapa