Election counting blunder enrages opposition - South Africa - Elections '99 - Sustainable Democracy

by Kondwani Chirambo

PRETORIA, 5 June 1999
The positive image of South Africa's all race
elections was momentarily marred by a major counting blunder which erroneously credited the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) with more than a million non-existent votes.

Deputy Chief electoral officer Norman du Plessis confirmed the embarrassing error which left opposition parties enraged by the false implication of the results on display at the Independent Electoral Commission"s screens.

The ANC was only a breath away from the 66,7 percent mark that would give it the two-thirds majority in parliament. And the IFP stunned observors with unexpected surge to second position, over-taking the Democratic Party(DP). But
both the ANC and IFP lost ground when the error surfaced.

The IEC dampened the spirits of the celebrating IFP cadres when it announced that an inputter had mistakenly entered two sets of figures, giving the ANC 863 883 votes instead of 833 and the IFP 281 246 instead of 246.

The IEC is receiving preliminary results by phone from polling districts and is verifying them against a faxed copy signed by party agents and presiding
officers. The results are displayed on a giant electronic board at the IEC's high-tech results centre in Pretoria, the country's administrative capital.

The correction meant the IFP slid to third position with 8.34 percent of the vote and the DP climbed back up to the coveted second slot with 9.79 percent. The second placed party becomes the official opposition in the 400-seat parliament.

For the ANC, the computer blunder means supporters have to wait a little longer for the last thousands of the remaining ballots to be counted and verified before they can be sure of attaining a two-thirds majority which would allow them to change sections of the constitution.

News of the error left the IFP down-cast and the DP in a buoyant mood.

"Why did it take more than an hour to rectify it and humiliate the IFP in the process? You have succeeded in making fools of us. I hope it sticks in your throat", an angry IFP official Koos Van der Merwe retorted at the IEC.

Opposition leaders have called on the IEC to investigate the anomalies. And in what may lay grounds for post-election legal challenges, the opposition further alleges that 270,000 votes may have been irregularly cast. Eighty-five percent
of the 18 million registered voters participated in the 2 June polls.

The counting error, described as "monumental" by du Plessis, brought confusion to a process that has been otherwise smoothly managed.

By Saturday morning, the ANC was still lingering close to a two-thirds at 66.21 percent and the DP kept praying that the last few hundred thousand black votes would not tilt the second position toward the IFP. (SARDC)