IEC commends citizens who queued for longer hours to vote

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The Electoral Commission has commended voters who were in queues until the early hours of this morning waiting to cast their votes.

Majority of voting stations closed late last night because of long queues of voters that they needed to clear.

Determined to cast their vote….
Almost three hours after polls closed.#Sabcnews #SAElections #SAVOTES24 @HerbertMemela pic.twitter.com/s8Cno5QFQ4

— Nozintombi (@nozintombimiya) May 29, 2024

About 10% of the votes have been counted thus far.

The uMkhonto we Sizwe party is leading in KwaZulu-Natal, followed by the African National Congress, while the Inkatha Freedom Party is in third position.

The commission’s National General Manager of Operations, Granville Abrahams says, “Given the challenges that we’ve had, we’ve issued instructions to our stations during the day after consulting with political parties as well, that we just go entirely manual to ensure that the queues start moving and during the course of the day- that was what we had implemented. And I must say, I must commend people that actually stood there in the queues patiently and some into the early hours to make sure that they exercise their democratic choice.” 

Snaking long queues well into the night at Fleurhof Primary in Johannesburg: 

FleurHof Primary school long snaking queues.#sabcnews#SAElections
##SAVOTES24 pic.twitter.com/3q0KEaJjtj

— Nozintombi (@nozintombimiya) May 29, 2024