IEC investigates missing ballot box in Umhlatuze, KZN

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The Electoral Commission in KwaZulu-Natal is investigating how a ballot box went missing in Umhlatuze. The commission says the missing ballot box fell off the back of an area manager’s bakkie in Umhlatuze.

The ballots had been counted.

The IEC’s provincial electoral officer, Ntombifuthi Masinga says by 5 pm this evening, over 75% of the votes in KwaZulu-Natal had been finalised and audited.

“The ballot box fell off the truck and another driver following the area manager alerted them that something had fallen off the truck. The area manager made a U-turn but unfortunately by the time he got to the spot the ballot box had disappeared. But because political parties already had the result it had no impact on the result for that voting station because we asked them to take photographs.”

2024 Elections | Still no sign of missing uMhlathuze ballot box:

eThekwini

Results for the eThekwini Municipality were the last to come in, in KwaZulu-Natal, on Friday night. This is due to the high number of voting stations in the metro.

On day two of the count in the country’s 7th general elections, the uMkhonto Wesizwe party remained firmly in the lead, ahead of the IFP and the ANC.

‘Ready to govern’

The MK party says it is ready to govern KwaZulu-Natal. The early front-runner in the province maintained its overwhelming lead at the top of the results board.

The MK party’s head of elections in the province, Musa Mkhize says, “We are rising up high, and we are ready to govern this country, and particularly this province of KwaZulu-Natal, remember uMkhonto Sizwe, is not just in South Africa, it’s also abroad, it belongs to all South Africans, who mostly eligible to vote and who have voted uMkhonto Wesizwe, when people vote for uMkhonto weSizwe its for themselves, not just a particular individual, it’s to me sure that we recover what we promised, what we fought for and what we have lost for the past 30 years.”

Political analyst Professor Bheki Mngomezulu says the ANC is unlikely to emerge with a two-thirds majority.

“Looking at the elections in 2016, 2019, 2021, leads me to the conclusion that the ANC is going down it has retained the province but with a reduced majority. So with the emergence of the MK party and of course with the multi-party charter led by the DA and with the upward trajectory of the IFP, I don’t see the ANC getting the 50 plus 1 threshold.”

Of the province’s 4 900 plus voting stations, 864 of these are in the eThekwini Municipality. The overwhelming number of voters in this area puts the metro at the end of the results pile.

The IEC’s provincial electoral officer, Ntombifuthi Masinga says, “Out of the 4974 voting stations in the province, eThekwini accounts for 864 of those. so as expected eThekwini will be the last to finalise their results. but we have also beefed up our teams and we’re going to have two teams working together to make sure we meet the deadline that has been set.”

Visiting the provincial results operations centre, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner, General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi called for political tolerance from political parties and especially party leaders- when the results are released.

Free and fair elections

Meanwhile, 92% of voters feel that the 2024 elections were free and fair according to the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).

The HSRC says trust in the Electoral Commission was high and almost all voters felt that they were safe to cast their ballot in secret. The body conducted an Election Satisfaction Survey across 300 voting stations in all the nine provinces during the general elections.

2024 Elections | Outcomes of HSRC Election Satisfaction Survey: 

-Reporting by Minoshni Pillay and Fanele Mhlongo