Counting complete, but here’s why SA must wait until the weekend for the final results
· Citizen
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) is painstakingly scrutinising every results slip as it verifies the outcome of the 2026 local government election.
As of 7pm, the results portal stated that 50% of votes had been counted, with IEC chair Mosotho Moepya stating in Thursday evening’s briefing that results for 65 of 213 municipalities had been confirmed.
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None of Gauteng’s nine municipalities had yet been confirmed, while Limpopo and the North West also had slow completion rates with 5% and 11%, respectively.
The Northern Cape had confirmed 21 of its 26 municipalities, the Western Cape had confirmed 14 of its 25, with the remaining provinces sitting between 37% and 14% completion.
The numbers presented by Moepya excluded the 44 district municipalities.
‘Exercise caution’ on early decalrations
The IEC chair explained the slow pace of releasing the results was simply procedural.
“Most of the counting, if not all of it, is completed. If there is any counting that is taking place, those are issues that the commission is dealing with and are having to give decisions on.
“What we are doing, it’s the process of collating and capturing those results into the results system. It’s not like 60% of the country is continuing to count,” said Moepya.
The DA this morning declared itself the victor in the City of Cape Town, with Moepya explaining that parties would already have a vague idea of their results.
However, he said the IEC was the sole party responsible for verified results, which are “anticipated” to be presented on Sunday.
“When the results slips are concluded at the voting station, ideally party agents are there, and a result will give an indication, at least at that station, to say this party has done well.
“The commission urges political parties, independent candidates, the media and members of the public to exercise caution when interpreting partial results, and to rely on officially verified results published by the commission,” said Moepya.
How complaints are tracked
The IEC has an issue tracker available to IEC officials and party representatives that the commission states has resolved over 1 000 queries and complaints since Monday.
While the media does not have access to this internal portal, Moepya described it as a “workflow system” that delegated tasks to officials.
“If an issue has been raised, it is timed. If someone has not attended to it, it escalates. But I don’t think those are the kinds of issues that are meant for access of information,” he said.
Objections with justifiable reasoning must be submitted by Friday, and the chair explained that a party agent could not delay the results by contesting them at the station or refusing to sign the results slip.
“There is no automatic demand to say that because the margin is small, or I lost by a small margin at this voting station, lets recount,” Moepya clarified.