Let’s chill and relax, suggests EFF’s Gardee
The EFF’s Godrich Gardee said he is optimistic current trends indicating that the ANC is leading would change drastically.
|||Pretoria - With the African National Congress (ANC) leading the national tally of votes counted on Thursday morning, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) cautioned that it was still early days.
“We’re looking forward to receiving results that will come much later today because whatever we are seeing on the [IEC live results] boards, even if it’s 45 percent of the 22 612 voting stations, it however represents a minute fraction of the actual voting population that cast their votes,” EFF secretary-general Godrich Gardee told the African News Agency at the national results operations centre (NROC) in Tshwane.
“What we see there is results from municipalities in the far-flung areas [including] the farms. Some of the municipalities have about 8 000 registered voters and probably about five voting stations. Such municipalities are as big as a voting station like Alexandra [in Gauteng].”
Gardee was optimistic that current trends indicated on the IEC live results boards would change drastically as the day progressed and counting was completed in more municipalities.
“We are gunning for all the 213 municipalities in South Africa. We are gunning for all the nine provinces in South Africa. We are gunning for the power of the State – to capture it and be in power in the municipalities to change the lives of our people. So, for now, let’s chill and relax,” he said.
A weary-looking Gardee said he had been monitoring the results trickling in at the NROC overnight and was now anticipating to be replaced at the elections nerve centre on Thursday morning.
“I should be out now. I was taking all the queries coming from the 22 612 voting stations’ party agents who were observing the counting overnight. They were raising queries about the counting process and I had to log it in and you have to know the environment you are working in.”
By 9:50am, 50 percent of the votes cast in Wednesday’s elections had been counted and displayed at the NROC, representing 11 521 of the 22,612 voting districts. The ANC was still in pole position with 52.19 percent. The DA was at 29.95 percent and the EFF trailing at 7.04 percent. It is the first time the left-wing party has contested local government elections.
The Electoral Commission was set to update media on the progress of the vote counting process at 11am.
African News Agency