ANC clinches more than 80% of Mpum votes

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Nelspruit - Preliminary results released by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) in Mpumalanga show the African National Congress (ANC) in the province has so far won 84.46% of the votes.

According to statistics from the IEC, 1 696 705 million people registered to vote in Mpumalanga. By Thursday afternoon, 937 789 votes had been counted, including 14 090 spoiled ballot papers.

The ANC received 84.46% (780 161) of the votes, followed by the Democratic Alliance with 8.34% (77 020) followed by the Congress of the People (Cope) with 2.89% (26 650) votes.

Provincial Electoral Officer, Steve Ngwenya, said overall the province performed very well during the voting process and there were no reports of negative incidents.

"We are currently busy counting the votes and as soon as we are through, the results will be released," said Mr Ngwenya.

He said the province had 1 376 voting stations and by Thursday votes from 999 stations had been captured and counted. Votes from 377 stations were still outstanding.

Results for the other parties were as follows by Thursday afternoon: Freedom Front Plus had 1.07%, the Inkatha Freedom Party 0.62%, African Christian Democratic Party 0.52%, African Peoples Convention 0.34%, AZAPO 0.24%, Christian Party 0.20%, Independent Democrats 0.12%, National Democratic Convention 0.11%, Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) 0.35%, Sindawonye Progressive Party 0.41%, United Christian Democratic Party 0.08% and the United Democratic Movement (UDM) 0,24%.