ANC either 'joyful' or 'concerned' about election results, depending on who you speak to

5 August 2016

Pretoria - With almost all the election results in on Friday morning, ANC spokespeople were contradicting each other over whether the local government polls had been a success.

ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa remained adamant that the ANC was "joyful" about their 54% overall support, but he was more cautious than the night before, when he described the party as "buoyant" and "energised" about the results.

Kodwa said it would be irresponsible of the ANC to make comments before all of the results were out.

By noon on Friday, more than 90% of the results were out.

"When percentages are announced in totality, we can make that comment," Kodwa said.

However, ANC chief whip, Jackson Mthembu said the ANC’s current standing in the polls - between 54% and 55% - was a "cause for concern", and that the party would have to do serious introspection on "what went wrong".

"Probably this is the first election where the ANC will be standing around 54%, 55%," Mthembu said.

"All the elections, we had over 60%. The mere fact that you are standing around 54%, 55% is indeed a cause for concern," he said.

Kodwa said, in terms of international standards, anything above 50% was already a majority.

"When you go beyond 54% you must understand, you are already have what is called a decisive victory."

He said in some areas the party had seen a low turnout of voters, and it could be an issue of concern.

"We can only make that termination when we ha analysed and dissected the results as to why certain people in certain areas did not vote in numbers," Kodwa said.

He said the party needed to know the reason why people were unhappy about certain things.

Kodwa said the ANC remained a dominant party.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.