The African National Congress has moved its national executive committee into municipal polling stations across South Africa, where members will remain until final results are certified, party officials confirmed on Friday. The decision followed early counting that placed the party on track for its weakest municipal showing since the end of apartheid.
Party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula's office said the leadership had been assigned one polling station each, chosen by lottery from a bowl of 9,600 slips, and would sleep on folding cots beside the ballot boxes. "Voters asked us to be closer to them," a party spokesperson said. "We have taken that instruction literally." Officials said the cots were procured from a provincial disaster-relief stockpile and returned in good condition.
Electoral officers in several wards reported that party leaders had begun reading out every ballot aloud before it was sorted, a practice the commission has asked them to stop. Local ANC branches have followed suit, and in Soweto a branch chairperson has announced that his members will vote a second time, in person, on behalf of the absent electorate. The party expects final figures to show the greatest interest it has ever shown in its own voters.