Elections 2024: Results trickling in as vote counting officially underway

JOHANNESBURG - Results of Wednesday’s landmark general elections have started trickling in at the Electoral Commission of South African (IEC)’s National Results Operations Centre, with at least 13 of the 23,293 voting districts having submitted their final tallies.

Just a little over midnight, the first polling station declared its election outcome.

A Baptist church in Mbizana in the Madikizela Mandela Municipality was the first to deliver 163 valid votes.

The announcement, which was made by the commission’s chairperson Mosotho Moepya followed a tough day for the IEC, as thousands of South Africans were stuck in snaking queues as they waited for an opportunity to cast their ballots.

The IEC has come under fire over some of its failing voting management devices, and officials who seemed to be confused when it came to the application of some of the rules at the different voting stations.

But the polls, which might be a candidate for a legal challenge have seemingly started to bear fruit.

“The fact that we are coming now saying the first results are ready to come through, tells you that work has never stopped, it's always continued as we expected it to,” said Moepya.

Thursday is likely to be a number-watching marathon as counting is completed and reflected on the leaderboard, with the IEC expected to officially declare these polls in the coming days.