The IEC set itself a goal of capturing 90% of the results by Wednesday morning, but are some way off the target.

Only 64% of the votes have been tallied, with the ANC in the lead nationally with 46.18%, followed by the DA with 22.36%, and the EFF in third at 10.23%.

Freedom Front Plus elections head, Wouter Wessels, says the delay in capturing is concerning.

“I think what is important to take note of is that the counting is already finished, it is now the capturing of those counting sheets and then the audit process. We should have progressed much further than we did.

“I am not sure why we are taking so long with certain audits and that is concerning, hopefully, a lot of results will come in within the next two to three hours and we will move from under 60% to 80% and hopefully, by the end of this evening we should be completed,” says Wessels.

While load-shedding might be the cause of the delay, Wessels believes there are also local issues at play.

“I think load-shedding, but I also think the systems... with every election you have, here on the second day a lot of problems on the local level were capturing that doesn’t take place or where that takes long, or where there are certain questions which cause delays in the capturing and auditing.”

Jacaranda News