Pretoria - The Inkatha Freedom Party was happy with the preliminary results on Thursday that put the party in fourth place.
“We are quite excited about the results. We have gotten a sizeable number nationally,” general secretary Sibongile Nkomo said at the IEC's results centre in Pretoria.
“I hope the number will have risen as the votes continue to come in.”
The IFP was holding on to second place in KwaZulu-Natal, where the African National Congress was comfortably in the lead with well over a million votes.
Nkomo attacked the credibility of the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC). She said elections in the country had not been free and fair since 1994.
She attributed the problem to the IEC allegedly employing people affiliated to the SA Democratic Teachers Union.
“When we talk of Sadtu members being managers of voting stations, it means that they will be serving the interests of the ANC. Sadtu is a Congress of SA Trade Unions affiliate and Cosatu is affiliated to the ANC,” she said.
Nkomo added that about 70 percent of Sadtu members manned voting stations and did not treat the party agents well.
“It means that the elections, as we have stated from 1994, the elections will not be free and fair. The president and IFP have sent out a petition to the IEC to stop employing Sadtu members because the elections will not be free and fair.”
Sapa