Voting stopped at 21:00 on Wednesday night, with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) saying voting in by-elections across the country went smoothly, aside from delays experienced in parts of Gauteng. 

A total of 609 133 people were expected to cast their ballots in the different municipalities with approximately 23 000 of those having already cast their votes, as special votes, on Tuesday. 

OFM News previously reported that 30 municipal by-elections were expected to take place in Central South Africa on Wednesday with four municipal ward by-elections in the Free State, six in the North West and 20 in the Northern Cape.

The November 11 by-elections were the first to be held since election activities were suspended in March this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the Free State, they included two wards in the Mangaung Metro, one in the Mohokare Municipality and another in the Matjhabeng Municipality. The four wards all became vacant as a result of the death of councillors.

Chief Electoral Officer, Sy Mamabolo, is Thursday afternoon expected to announce results and outline how the voting went with Covid-19 regulations, as well as lessons learnt as the by-elections came ahead of the Local Government Election scheduled for 2021.

OFM News