Bay IEC presiding officers threaten to walk out

A group of Independent Electoral Commission presiding officers in Nelson Mandela Bay threatened to abandon their posts on Thursday, saying they were not told they would be working for a second day.

One of the presiding  officers who were tasked with ensuring that voting runs smoothly at the 255 voting stations in the metro said they would never take on the task again.

“Never again,” the presiding officer said.

Nelson Mandela Bay electoral officer Mbuzeli Mqulwana said they had calmed the situation and none of the presiding officers had left.

“We have managed to resolve the situation, all presiding officers are now calm and they are at their respective places."

Mqulwana said the commotion could be attributed to the large number of people who were cramped up in a small room.

“They came in a huge number at once and after we observed that we had to come up with plan B and create two streams to make sure that the process is fast, but we have resolved that.

The IEC has created two results centres, one at the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium and one at the Uitenhage town hall.

The results are captured at both centres after voting took place on Wednesday at 258 voting stations across the metro.

IEC Nelson Mandela Bay supervisor Crosby Bacela said the IEC would only have an indication of the votes at by 3pm on Thursday.

By 10am, 43% of votes in the Eastern Cape have been counted. The ANC is leading with 68,13%, the DA with 18,44% followed by the EFF at 6,72%

Meanwhile, some political party representatives are camped out at the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium in anticipation of the results.