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ELECTION NEWS AND VIDEOS - The new premier of the Western Cape, Alan Winde, is expected to be formally elected on 22 May.

This follows the 2019 provincial and national elections on 8 May, during which the Democratic Alliance retained the majority support in the province, albeit with a smaller margin.

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Similarly, President Cyril Ramaphosa is facing the challenging task of selecting his national cabinet which, in the run-up to the election, he had promised would be much smaller than that of his predecessor.

The ANC has also won a smaller national majority (57.50%), and will return to Parliament with 230 of the 400 seats - 19 less than previously.

The DA remains the official opposition in the national Parliament with 84 seats, having forfeited five seats. 

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) return to Parliament with an increased majority, taking up 19 more seats, for a total of 44. 

The Freedom Front Plus (10 seats, six more than previously), and ACDP (four, one more than previously) have all increased their presence in the national Parliament. 

The newcomer party, GOOD, headed by Patricia de Lille, will take up two seats.

The EFF and FF Plus are the only two major national parties that posted growth in all nine provinces and nationally, compared to their 2014 figures. While the ANC won a sixth term to govern South Africa, it is with 4.65% lower support from the 2014 level. DA support also dwindled from 2014, but is still higher than 2009 levels.

Although 5.48% more people registered to vote (2014: 25 388 082 vs 2019: 26 779 025), in total almost a million fewer people voted in the 2019 election than in 2014 (2014: 18 654 771; 2019: 17 671 616). Analysts say the smaller turnout was indication of voter apathy, as was the number of spoilt votes. There were, however, fewer spoilt votes this year compared with 2014.

The 2014 voter turnout was 73.48%; this year it was 65.99%. Economist Mike Schussler said on Twitter: "Political parties no longer attract voters. The largest tw parties saw declines of 12% each in the number of people who voted for them.

"The ANC share of the voting age population has dropped from 37.7% to 26% since 2004."

The ANC retained the eight provinces it governed previously. After a nailbiting wait for the final election results in Gauteng, the electoral commission announced late on Friday that the hotly contested province will be governed with a slim ANC majority of 50.1%.

Provincial cabinet
During an interview with Group Editors in the run-up to the elections, DA premier candidate Winde said he was aware of the huge challenges in the Western Cape.

He said he intended to realise the DA election promise of a job in every household, and that he personally would therefore bring to the office of the premier a more entrepreneurial, innovative approach.

Winde now faces the difficult task of electing the provincial cabinet that will have to make good on the DA election promises, such as the creation of a provincial police force, more housing opportunities, and job creation.

"The Western Cape is already recognised as the best province in the country. Our job for the next five years is to make it even better. We will remain focused on speeding up delivery of basic services, and the best education and healthcare systems in the country," Winde said in a statement directly after the election results were declared by the electoral commission on Saturday night.

Voters' message
The DA has received a strong message from the electorate. The party now (2019 - 52.39% / 2014: 59.38%) takes the reins with a smaller majority.

The ANC (2019 - 31.26%) remains the official provincial opposition, while the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF 2019 - 4.19%) comfortably leads the Freedom Front Plus (2019 - 2.81%) and African Christian Democratic Party (2019 - 2.80%) in provincial voter support.

The Western Cape Parliament will henceforth consist of DA (24 members), ANC (12), EFF (2), ACDP (1), FF+ (1) and Al Jama-ah (1).

Voter turnout in the Western Cape was 68.17%, with a sizable 20 890 spoilt votes. In total 2 129 941 voters participated in the elections.

Of the rest of the parties, three with the most votes who nevertheless did not manage to obtain a seat in the provincial parliament are Icosa (9 536), Cape Party (9 326), and Cope (6 526). Icosa nevertheless retained the majority support in the party stronghold, Kannaland, also the hometown of its president, Jeffrey Donson. Icosa shed 2 091 votes in the 2019 election.

Buck the national trend
While it seems that DA voters may have differentiated their support between the provincial and national vote, Mossel Bay voters seem to have bucked that trend and consolidated their support for the party.

In virtually every ward the DA managed to increase their support. Considering the provincial results, Mossel Bay scored the most DA votes (61%) compared to other constituencies in the Western Cape. Considering all of the votes, Hessequa (71.43%) did the DA proud with the highest voter turnout.

Free and fair
The IEC on Saturday indicated it would "vigorously oppose legal action aimed at interfering in the conduct of the elections and finalisation and announcement of the results", as there was no basis in law to interdict the declaration of the election results.

This followed the arrest of 20 people - one of whom was a journalist - for voting more than once or attempting to do so.

Fortunately, the block of disgruntled smaller parties who called for a rerun and threatened legal action against the electoral commission over what they called irregularities in the electoral processes, conceded that the election was free and fair. After the Statistician-General briefed the aggrieved parties during a lengthy party liaison committee meeting on Saturday, they accepted the declared election results for 2019.

The parties said they were satisfied with the explanation by the Statistician-General that the margin of error of less than a percentage was not enough to seriously or materially affect the outcome of the 2019 election.
This followed the furore by political parties over the probability that voters could vote more than once as the supposedly indelible ink seemed to wash off.

Ink washed off
The IEC Western Cape electoral officer, Courtney Sampson, was appraised of the personal experience of the Mossel Bay Advertiser News Editor, Nickey le Roux. The ink on her thumb washed off within minutes of her casting a special vote on Monday, 6 May.

She immediately obtained legal advice on whether she could try to vote a second time in an attempt to test the system. She was strongly advised not to even attempt this, as the mere attempt would constitute a criminal offence for which she would be prosecuted.

Sampson intimated that in his opinion there were people who "went to great extent to get rid of the ink, using all sorts of chemical substances - we do not quite know what point to prove".

He told the media that it was unacceptable "to have indelible ink that is not indelible". Sampson said it was not a universal problem and that the IEC would establish whether or not the problem had a material impact on the outcome of the election.

Le Roux reported her personal experience of the indelible ink that washed off - without the use of chemicals - to political party representatives and to the IEC officials and also to the provincial electoral officer.

Declared free and fair
Observers of the Electoral Code of Conduct Observer Commission and More than Peace, an interfaith observer group, addressed the media at the last media conference to share their observations of the 2019 national and provincial election.

"The election was an exercise in trust, trust in the leadership that was elected, but also trust that the processes followed were above reproach," Khalib Galant of More than Peace said.

He highlighted that there were vulnerabilities in the election process, but added that the group was happy that the problems were resolved amicably and quickly.

"The right to vote at any polling station in the province and the processes to manage that right seem not to have been in concert. However, we did not observe double voting."

The 3 videos below were taken at the IEC results centre last week:

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