Parties in Western Cape keenly tracking election results

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Political parties in the Western Cape province say they are monitoring the election results that are currently trickling in with keen interest.

Both the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the African national Congress (ANC) say they are less concerned about glitches in the IEC.

The glitches saw long voting queues and subsequently a protracted counting process.

The IEC has subsequently said that a lot needs to be done to improve their internal systems.

DA Premier Candidate in the Western Cape, Alan Winde says, “There were voting stations that were slick and working well but there were those that had long, long queues. I was in Parklands last night, out in Cloetesville out in parts of Stellenbosch, down in the Somerset, Gordon’s Bay region…long, long queues. The weather started to turn; it got much colder, but people stood their ground. They stayed in the lines. I was there to encourage them…if they were going to stand there and vote, then I was going to stand in the cold with them but that was great for democracy. But the IEC must go back and have a look why this happened.”

Winde interacts with voters braving the cold and long queues: 

Power cuts

Meanwhile, the IEC in the province has confirmed that power cuts disrupted voting at some of the stations, mainly in the Cape Winelands.

Strong winds caused the power cuts.

Electoral officer, Michael Hendrickse, says the staff were able to resume counting using rechargeable lights. 

“Look in the early hours of this morning there was a power outage in the Worcester, Villiersdorp area it was apparently caused by high winds etc. That impacted on the 67 of our stations that were busy counting at that stage. We put measures to make sure that we can continued counting with temporary lighting but fortunately for us within an hour Eskom could restore all the power.” 

VIDEO | Results expected by Sunday – IEC: