Johannesburg – An Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) centre was set alight by residents of Alexandra, Gauteng police said on Friday.
A room in a community centre which was used by the IEC was burned by residents on Thursday night, Brigadier Neville Malila said.
There were people inside the centre at the time of the fire, but no injuries were reported.
Thirty-one people were arrested and are expected to appear in court soon.
Malila said the motive was unknown.
– SAPA
Pretoria – Voter turnout across South Africa’s nine provinces in Wednesday’s election varied depending on the province, according to results from Electoral Commission of SA’s national results operations centre in Pretoria on Friday morning.
While the overall voter turnout average for the country was 70.89% by 04:39, the lowest was in Limpopo, with 60.56%.
The province with the best voter turnout was KwaZulu-Natal, with 75.73%. It was followed by Gauteng (73.35%), Mpumalanga (72.85%), Western Cape (72.65%), Northern Cape (71.29%), Free State (70.67%), Eastern Cape (68.30%), and North West (66.30%).
A total of 25 383 361 people were registered to vote countrywide prior to election day.-Sapa
Pretoria – The ANC continued to maintain its lead in the City of Johannesburg early on Friday morning, as results from the municipality continued filtering in to the Electoral Commission of SA’s national results operations centre.
Looking at the provincial vote, the ruling party by 04:31 had 49.35% of the vote 267 625 votes, with the Democratic Alliance lying in second with 36.07% of the vote (195 641 votes).
The Economic Freedom Fighters held third place, with 9.12% (49 454 votes), while the IFP were a distant fourth with 1.31% (7 097).
A total of 542 441 votes had been counted, with voter turnout in the metro at 73.56%.-Sapa
Pretoria – Pictures of dumped ballots have spread quickly across social media but just before 7pm on Thursday evening the IEC has said that they had heard no reports of the issue. Boxes of dumped ballots were found this afternoon in Alexandra and Diepsloot in Johannesburg, as well as Lynnwood in Pretoria. The photos of the discovered ballots were retweeted by political party leaders including Helen Zille and Ramphele Mamphele.
For more http://www.iol.co.za
PRETORIA – The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) it is trying to establish the authenticity of reports that bags of ballot papers were found in a park in Lynnwood Ridge, Pretoria.
Eyewitness News established the papers were found in a park on Thursday.
Voting stations were set up for Wednesday’s elections in Cedar Road.
Most of the papers were apparently in favour of the Democratic Alliance (DA).
Sources say the black bags were discovered by residents this morning and collected by an unknown man earlier today.
The IEC says it is aware of the incident and is following up.
The commission has been in touch with the person who reported the matter and is expected to address the matter in a press briefing by chairperson Pansy Tlakula shortly.
For more http://www.ewn.co.za
By Obakeng Maje
Tsineng- A 42-year-old man from Tsineng village near Kuruman is due to appear before the Mothibistad Magistrate’s Court on Friday for allegedly raping a 4 year-old girl.
The incident happened on Wednesday. Apparently the suspect decoyed the girl into his house and offered her biscuits, where he subsequently raped her.
“After the atrocity the girl went home crying. When she was questioned by her grandmother, she told her that a certain man in the nearby had raped her” Lieutenant Olebogeng Tawana said.
The suspect is behind bars and charged for rape after his arrest on Wednesday.
“The South African Police Service condemns the heinous crimes against children. The criminals are cautioned not to take the advantage of vulnerability of those who cannot defend themselves. On the other hand guardians and parents are urged not to neglect their children as they become the victims of crime” Tawana said.-TDN
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JOHANNESBURG – Alexandra police are investigating an apparent hostage drama linked to alleged vote rigging.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) are both accusing the ANC of vote rigging and tampering in the northern Johannesburg township. Residents say an EFF member found a box of ballot papers at the entrance of the Thusong Service Centre on Thursday morning.
For more http://www.ewn.co.za
Johannesburg – Preliminary election results show the DA maintaining its Western Cape stronghold, while racing neck and neck with the ANC for the city of Tshwane.
By midday on Thursday, the Electoral Commission in the Western Cape had captured over half of the votes cast.
“We have already counted 1.6 million people and that is a count out of 2.94 million [registered] people…” provincial electoral officer Courtney Sampson said.
By noon the Democratic Alliance had obtained just under 60% of the vote in the Western Cape, compared to just over 50% in 2009.
The African National Congress had around 33% of the vote in the Western Cape, followed by the Economic Freedom Fighters with more than 2%.
Surpassed
The African Christian Democratic Party and Freedom Front Plus stood at a little over 1% each in the province.
The Congress of the People dropped to under 1% in the Western Cape.
DA Parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko said the party was growing and making inroads in the Western Cape.
Mazibuko was excited about the lead the party had in the province…the only province not governed by the ANC.
The DA had surpassed its 2009 numbers with only half of this year’s votes counted so far.
“We are very upbeat and we are growing significantly in this election,” Mazibuko said.
Garnered
She predicted the DA would do well in Gauteng once all the stations had submitted their results.
“We will do very well once the results for Tshwane and Johannesburg are received and we had a very good premier candidate in Mmusi Maimane,” she said.
Gauteng numbers for the ANC and the DA were fairly even in the City of Tshwane.
Out of the 35 719 votes counted, the ANC secured 15 765 with 14 659 votes for the DA.
The FF Plus was a distant third in Tshwane with 6.29% of the vote (2 248), while the EFF garnered 1 881.
By midday on Thursday, the ANC was leading nationally in the election race with over four million votes, just over 62% of the counted votes.
The DA secured 1.7m votes (23.01%).
Julius Malema’s EFF was in third position with 362,063 votes (4.73%).
Midnight
Meanwhile, the IEC said results from the eThekwini metro municipality were likely to be the last to be finalised in KwaZulu-Natal.
In Durban, the province’s chief electoral officer Mosery Mawethu said counting of votes was continuing at three Durban polling stations by mid-morning.
All counting at the rest of the province’s 4 746 polling stations and capturing of the results was under way.
The final capturing of results in the province was expected to be completed by midnight on Thursday.-Sapa
Pretoria – The ANC is confident that it will win Gauteng comfortably, according to party national spokesperson Jackson Mthembu.
“Gauteng is the ANC’s home, we will win it,” he said to News24 at the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s national results operations centre in Pretoria on Thursday.
The ANC currently has over 380 000 votes in Gauteng, compared to just over 180 000 from its closest rival, the DA.
Meanwhile, ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte told News24 that the ANC is “on the whole very happy” with how the elections have proceeded thus far, and that things were looking positive for Gauteng.
“It’s early days yet, and we can normally see the trend after half the votes are in. There are no big surprises for us so far.”
She added that results have yet to come in from some big wards in Gauteng, so she is expecting a further improvement in the ANC’s results.
For more http://www.news24.com
Pretoria – The ANC says it has not yet considered entering into coalition talks in the Western Cape, as initial results show it is lagging significantly behind the DA in the province.
Currently, the DA has over 960 000 votes in the province, while the ANC has just over 520 000.
ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte told News24 at the IEC national results operations centre in Pretoria that the possibility of entering into a coalition “has not been discussed”.
ANC national spokesperson Jackson Mthembu reiterated what Duarte said, saying “there are no coalition talks yet”.
However, he added that the ANC’s strongholds are mostly in rural areas in the Western Cape, and many of those results are not yet in.
“We are keeping our options open,” he said.
For more http://www.news24.com
