Johannesburg – As results continued to stream in on Wednesday with talks of coalitions, hung municipalities and lost ground, some parties have reacted to their performance so far:
UDM
United Democratic Movement’s (UDM) treasurer-general Thandi Nontenja expressed concern that most of their voters were turned away from voting stations, calling the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) “careless”.
Nontenja said the failure to upload over 200 000 voters to the system after registration was careless.
“Most of our voters were calling in and turned away from the voting stations because of the carelessness which they called technical glitches. To me that is carelessness because people were registered. It is a concern to us, while the IEC is playing it down. We were inundated by calls from people who were turned away, that is our main problem with the IEC at the moment,” she said.
Video: Ntombi Nkosi/IOL Politics
Nontenja said they are going to sit down and reflect on what can be done about that because they have been raising that matter with the IEC.
“IEC seems to be playing this down, they said they are going to call people at the end. They said 8 000 went back, but some of our people when they went back they were told that the MEC 7s were not available. Second time going to a DVD they are told that this material is not in place and they have to go back, we are concerned.
“We feel that the IEC when they went to court to apply for the postponement of the elections they knew that they were not ready,” said Nontenja.
AIC
The African Independent Congress (AIC) councillor Margaret Arnolds expressed her party’s disappointment with the IEC’s performance.
Arnolds said the issue of glitches could have been overcome with proper planning.
“People not being on the voter’s roll, that is proof of work not being done on time and shows that it was a rush-rush. We are hopeful that we will come out and retain what we had, and maybe gain in other places. I can tell you that the results in the Eastern Cape, some of them are out, we already have two seats in Matatiele, so to us we do believe that we are going to feature somewhere for the next five years,” she said.
Video: Timothy Bernard/African News Agency (ANA)
She said no political party was impressed with the technical challenges that were experienced on election day.
AIC in 2016 went into coalition with the ANC which failed to get the majority vote.
Arnorlds said they are going into coalition with the ANC again, as it was the only way that they can get into government to ensure that their people get service delivery.
Freedom Front Plus
Freedom Front Plus head of elections, Wouter Wessels said there were still plenty of results that they are waiting for, especially in the bigger municipalities and in the metros that can still make a huge difference.
“At this stage it is looking good if you are looking at the board. We are one of the few parties in this election that grew and did not lose support. We are proud and thankful to our supporters, it proves that we are the growing alternative in South African politics. We have gained seats in places where we never had representation, such as municipalities in Western Cape, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Northern Cape and North West,” said Wessels.
Video: Timothy Bernard/ African News Agency
He said the party retained their ward they won during by-elections in North West and they can see growth in Tshwane.
“We are doing well in Tshwane and we are most probably going to be a king-maker in Tshwane and a lot of other hung municipalities,” he said.
Wessels said like ActionSA, they are not going to have a coalition with the ANC.
Political Bureau