NATIONAL NEWS - By 07:00, the DA had all but won in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro, with a reduced lead, but in Gauteng little was yet completely clear.
News24 also reported at 07:40 that it understood that the ANC would withdraw its complaint against the IEC in Nelson Mandela Bay, The Citizen reports.
In an interview with eNCA thereafter, the ANC’s Jackson Mthembu said they had withdrawn the complaint because they realised it had little chance of success and they were satisfied that votes had been correctly counted after consultation with the IEC.
With the overall count at 88% at 10.20pm on Friday, the IEC said it expected to have all results finalised by no later than noon on Friday. Ethekwini metro in particular had been lagging badly behind in the count.
In Tshwane, the tennis match of who was leading continued by 6.30am on Friday, with the DA pulling ahead by just more than 1.5% with about a third of the vote left to declare.
The Democratic Alliance’s lead in Nelson Mandela Bay had dropped to well below 50% overnight, with only 2% of the vote left to declare.
In Johannesburg, however, with a similar amount of the vote (30%) still to declare the battle between DA and ANC, it was as it had been from the start: neck and neck. However, the ANC was still feeling confident with data from traditional ANC stronghold Soweto still to be reflected.
