Port Elizabeth - The results for the 2016 municipal elections for the hotly-contested Nelson Mandela Bay have been postponed to Friday morning.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said the results were expected to be announced on Friday at 11am.
IEC regional supervisor Crosby Bacela said the delay was due to the IEC still being busy with exceptions in some voting districts, despite an earlier announcement that the results would be announced on Thursday night.
On Thursday, IEC deputy chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said they would announce the results of the local government elections for the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan municipality on Thursday night.
“When will the results from metros be declared? For the Nelson Mandela Bay, it will be sometime during the course of this evening. For the other metros in Gauteng, it will be during the course of the day tomorrow,” Mamabolo told reporters at the national results operations centre in Tshwane at around 6pm.
“The capturing process for the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan municipality is currently at 91.3 percent complete so we are working hard in that part of the world to declare that municipality some time during the course of this evening. There are just 44 results slips that have to be captured, scanned and audited at that municipality.”
On a national scale, Mamabolo said the capturing process for the results slips was well under way and also nearing completion.
“Although we have captured 92.7 percent of the results slips, the ones which are complete after going through auditing as well scanning them into the system are 83.3 percent. This means we still have 10 496 results slips to process before we finalise the results capturing process which representing 16.7 percent,” said Mamabolo.
“Our projection is that by late evening we would have reached the completion rate of about 90 percent. That means about 90 percent of all results will be in and complete by late evening today (Thursday). The balance of the results will come through during the course of the day tomorrow (Friday). By early evening tomorrow, all results will be in the system.”
Meanwhile, emotions were at a peak in Nelson Mandela Bay as the DA continued to take lead at the polls ahead of the ANC. The atmosphere at the centre was festive and DA members were in good spirits and prepare for an “outright win”.
Speaking at the IEC results centre in Zwide earlier on Thursday night, DA mayoral candidate Athol Trollip said that very few voting districts spread across the city were outstanding.
“The small voting districts spread across the city, they don’t belong to anyone so it’s not as if there’s going to be a change in what the numbers look like. We believe that we will be the biggest party in Nelson Mandela Bay and we look forward to the responsibility and putting a new government together,” Trollip said.
Trollip dismissed suggestions that areas of Motherwell and Uitenhage could possibly push up the chances for the ANC.
“Well good luck to them, we running out of time I don’t think there’s going to be much change. There are formulas, we’ve been doing this for a long time, we didn’t start elections today. We know how to apply the maths and work the formulas, I believe we are the biggest party,” he said.
Trollip was not prepared to talk about coalitions until final results had emerged.
“We will discuss a penalty shootout when we have a draw, so we haven’t had a draw yet, we don’t have the final result is. When we do have a final result, we will look at how many party’s we need if we need any and we’ll go talk to them,” said Trollip.
Meanwhile, ANC members also filled the venue at the East Cape Training Centre and were seen waiting chatting among themselves nervously.
Incumbent Mayor Danny Jordaan had not visited the centre on Thursday.
However, the ANC in Nelson Mandela Bay announced late on Thursday night that they would be lodging a dispute with the IEC, saying that election results in the metro would not represent the “will of the people”.
Speaking at a press conference at the IEC results centre in Zwide, ANC Regional Task Team co-ordinator Beza Ntshona said that the party would cite “widespread of irregularities” in its formal complaint.
Ntshona said this was based on “dumped” ballot boxes discovered in a tent earlier in the day behind the results centre in Port Elizabeth.
The ANC is also complaining about “systematic evidence of bias” by presiding officers and “DA agents” whom he accused of being directly involved in the conduct of elections.
The party also went on to blame poor infrastructure at voting stations in the township areas and to say they had written to the IEC raising their concerns twice before Thursday.
The ANC is claiming there were attempts to “manipulate” the outcome of the election.
Ntshona said that the ANC would be meeting with its legal team to decide on a course of action and further explained they were taking this route on behalf of ANC supporters for a “free and fair election”.
AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY