The UK Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has announced that by 9pm tonight, more than 35% of voters have said their prediction for the outcome of the 2024 general election remains unchanged.
The CSIR's results model predicted the ANC would win 41.7% of the vote.
Next to the African National Congress (ANC) was the Democratic Alliance (DA) with 21.2% of the vote, followed by Umkhonto we'Sizwe with 14% and the EFF with 9%.
Dr Geoffrey Baloyi of the CSIR expects the status quo to continue in the traditional ANC strongholds of the Free State and North West provinces.
“Our module becomes accurate when it gets to 5% of the constituency declarations, so we're now at about 30%. Since then, the module has remained the same, both for ANC results and results for other parties. Remember, with every election new parties come on board, and our module has shown it can predict the performance of new parties very accurately,” he adds.
“When we look at different voting districts, we look at the similarities in the behavior of voters in those districts. If we know that this district did indeed vote for this particular party, then we know that another district similar to it is likely to vote for that party. So we are able to predict the outcome, and our prediction methodology is accurate,” Baloyi said.
Meanwhile, the IEC has said it will address any objections raised about the electoral process before announcing the final results.
The commission must announce the final results within seven days of the vote.
“The committee is made up of five members, one of whom has to be a judge. On the right hand side we have a department that handles all objections. Our legal department is very busy,” said IEC operations manager Granville Abrahams.
“They are out of sight and it looks like they're not doing anything, but they're putting together mountains of paperwork and walking towards the committee, so it's happening behind the scenes and it's going to be dealt with and responded to,” Abrahams added.
Live Stream