Following a general election day in which millions of South Africans queued for hours at 23,292 polling stations across the country, the election has moved into its next crucial phase.
Millions of South Africans turned out to vote at polling stations across the country on Wednesday, where voters were met with long queues and technical glitches with ballot control equipment.
IEC State Elections Officer Michael Hendricks said a late surge in voting, especially in the capital region, also complicated things.
“The last polling station was in a Cape Town metro station. Voting finished at around 1pm. We need to look at our process and see how we can improve it because it is unacceptable that so many people have been made to wait for so long and have had to have difficult conversations.”
In the Western Cape, with less than 50% of votes counted, the DA maintained a clear majority, followed by the ANC and then the Patriotic Alliance.
But analysts say the political situation may be shifting locally.
“Traditionally the ANC dominated rural areas but then that flipped to the DA and now we've seen in the last by-elections the Patriotic Alliance take traditional DA constituencies from the municipalities of Oudtsholen and Swartland, so it will be interesting to see how the rural landscape changes,” says Dr Haran Cloete, a political analyst at the University of the Free State. “And now we've seen the Patriotic Alliance take traditional DA constituencies from the municipalities of Oudtsholen and Swartland in the last by-elections. So it will be interesting to see how the rural landscape changes.”
At the moment, all eyes are on the moving numbers on the Election Commission, rather than on the process of counting seats in Parliament and state assemblies.
Most of the results in the Central and Little Karoo have been tallied in the Western Cape.