Vote counting: Results for North West and KwaZulu-Natal start to trickle in

Earlier this week, the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) cluster and the IEC identified and prioritised potential hotspots in these provinces ahead of South Africans cast their vote on Wednesday.

Results for the North West and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, which had been identified as high-risk areas in the 2019 National and Provincial Elections, have started to trickle in.

Earlier this week, the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) cluster and the IEC identified and prioritised potential hotspots in these provinces ahead of South Africans cast their vote on Wednesday.

In a statement on Tuesday, the cluster said 51 306 police officers would be deployed in voting stations across the country.

As vote counting continued at the IEC's results centre in Pretoria on Thursday, as at 9:41 am, 34% of the voting districts had completed their vote-counting nationally.

In the North West, the African National Congress (ANC) was sitting at 64.75% of the vote followed by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) at 15.28% of the vote in the province. Third in line is the Democratic Alliance (DA) with 10.82% of the vote, followed by the Vryheidsfront Plus at 5.29% of the vote.

KwaZulu-Natal, which was battered by floods in recent weeks, had a total of just over five million registered voters - sitting at 5 524 666 registered voters.

According to the latest update, 289 400 total votes were cast in the province and a total 5 708 votes were spoilt.

The ANC was in the lead with 56%, then the IFP with 18.72%, followed by the DA with 12.13% of the votes in that province.

On Wednesday night the IEC reported voting in several areas after dark was affected by power outages. One of the areas affected included Umlazi in KwaZulu-Natal.

As of 11 am on Thursday, eThekwini of which Umlazi is a part of showing that a total 7 849 were cast.

Other parts affected by the outage included Vuwani and Giyani, in Limpopo and parts of Johannesburg, in Gauteng.

According to data last updated at 9:41 am, a total of 161 978 votes in the province had been cast.

(With Inputs from South African Government Press Release)