MK party continues to take significant lead in KZN as election results roll in

The 2024 general election results for KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) continued to come in on Thursday afternoon.

By late Thursday afternoon, former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party was leading with 111 459 votes, followed by the ANC with 52 207 and IVP with 51 921.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) in KZN announced that vote counting for the province will be completed on Thursday.

Provincial Electoral Officer Ntombifuthi Masinga said 98 voting districts in KZN are still counting ballots.

She told the media that they expect to finish capturing and auditing the results by midday on Friday. Preliminary results and seat allocations are to be announced on Sunday.

According to the Electoral Act, the IEC has seven days to announce and gazette the results. “We have always been able to declare and announce the results well within this period and will endeavour to do so with these elections,” said the IEC.

Early results predict good outcome for MK

Piet Croucamp, political analyst at the Business School of the North-West University, told The Citizen that although only just over 12% of KZN’s votes have been counted and verified, the MK party has a big lead over the ANC and the DA.

This is a good indication that the party will achieve a majority in the province. Otherwise, they will probably come very close to it.

According to Croucamp, however, one will only be able to see the final outcome for the provincial government after coalitions have been formed.

Chance of violence after elections is low

As for public violence after the announcement of the election results, Croucamp believes that one can never rule out the possibility, but that the police seem to be ready to nip any disruptions in the bud.

According to Lizette Lancaster, Head of the Public Violence Monitoring Project at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), there may be a heightened risk of public protests in the two weeks between the announcement of the results and the constitutional requirement that the National Assembly elects a president and provincial legislators elect premiers.

“If there are no outright winners nationally or in some provinces, formal governing coalitions will be negotiated. During this period, there may be demonstrations of support for political parties to strengthen their positions. For those excluded from the deal-making, public disruptions may be used by some parties to try to force a compromise.”

Despite all this, says Lancaster, it’s unlikely that the country will experience the level of widespread violence seen in July 2021. Those riots were a wake-up call for law enforcement, businesses, and communities.

Police and private security have since improved communication and coordination, and seemingly better state and private intelligence-gathering systems should prevent large-scale violence.

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