IEC to resolve 49 objections ahead of results announcement

Friday, August 5, 2016

Pretoria - The Electoral Commission (IEC) has undertaken to resolve all 49 objections which are material to the outcome of the results of the 2016 municipal elections, it said on Friday evening.

Briefing reporters shortly after 5pm at the National Results Operations Centre (ROC) in Pretoria, the IEC said it had received the objections in terms of Section 65 of the Municipal Electoral Act.

“These are objections material to the outcome of the results of an election. It is only after we have exhausted the Section 65 objections of the Municipal Electoral Act that we can be able to announce the results,” IEC Vice Chairperson Terry Tselane said.

Tselane said the commission will attend to the objections ahead of the announcement of the results of the country’s fifth municipal elections – expected on Saturday.

“We will exhaust every objection that has been received by the commission before we announce the results of the elections as required in law,” said Tselane.

Meanwhile, the commission confirmed that the African National Congress (ANC) had withdrawn its objection with regards to Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape. The party had launched a dispute with the commission about the election outcome.

With 100% of voting districts declared for Nelson Mandela Bay, the Democratic Alliance (DA) clinched the metro with 46.71% of the votes. 

On Thursday a stack of marked ballot papers that were lying unsecured in a tent at the IEC’s operations centre in the city.

“The status in relation to the objection in Nelson Mandela Bay [is that] the ANC has withdrawn its objection and we are comfortable as an organisation to move forward with the announcement of the results,” said Tselane.

Party projections

Meanwhile, Tselane addressed the issue of political parties announcing their projected results in the areas that they are contesting.

“There is nothing irregular or wrong with that pronouncement… The fact that the commission provides three opportunities through which the public can get to know the results of the elections is actually testimony of the transparency that we have put into the process,” said Tselane.

He explained that results are announced at voting station level where there are party agents who can transmit results to their centres and they are then able to collate the results.

“We [also] introduced an innovation that is the IEC app, which you can download. The app provides you with the results of the elections [that are] captured and scanned. Therefore, you can also make a determination in terms of those results.”

As a third option, results can also be viewed on the leader board at the ROC.

Tselane, however, stressed that while results are there for everyone to see, these were not yet official results.

“[This is] because we still have to go through particular processes, but [these results] give you an indication,” said Tselane. – SAnews.gov.za