The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has addressed and rectified a temporary disruption that occurred on its results viewing portal.
This issue, which caused the portal to go blank early on Friday morning, lasted for approximately two hours before being resolved.
Despite the interruption, the IEC assured the public that election result processing was unaffected, as local offices continued capturing results during the downtime. “All services have since been restored, and the leaderboard is functioning normally,” the commission confirmed in a statement, noting that the integrity of the results remained intact.
The incident occurred as the IEC’s results dashboard, housed at the technologically advanced Results Operating Centre (ROC) in Gallagher Estate, Midrand, was in full swing.
This Centre, built with solid digital infrastructure and high-speed WiFi provided by Telkom subsidiaries BCX and Openserve, is the hub for political parties, candidates, observers, stakeholders, and the media during the election period.
As the portal resumed normal operations, preliminary results for the South Africa election indicated that 54.9% of polling stations had reported their counts.
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The ruling African National Congress (ANC) led with 41.86% of the votes, followed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) at 23.67%, and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) at 19.98%.
These figures show a decline for the ANC compared to its 57.5% victory in the 2019 elections, potentially forcing President Cyril Ramaphosa to consider coalition negotiations to maintain governance stability.
The IEC has not disclosed the exact cause of the glitch but reiterated that the technical issue did not compromise the data’s integrity. The Commission is looking to keep up the transparency and efficiency in processing and announcing the final election results.
In a wider view of the National and Provincial Elections 2024, the ROC’s role is important in ensuring smooth operation and communication.
The Centre, described as digitally advanced, was officially opened last week and is designed to facilitate the efficient handling of election data.
