DA's Alan Winde confident of victory as his party leads in the Western Cape
But the premier candidate does not want to call it yet
Alan Winde, the DA's premier candidate for the Western Cape, was confident on Thursday afternoon that his party would pull through with a clear majority in the province.
Results continued to slowly trickle in at the provincial results centre in Cape Town.
Winde, who arrived at the centre around 3.30pm, would not be drawn into predicting the numbers. "I’m not going to call it as yet," he said when asked about the percentage he thought the party would clinch at the end.
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"I am cautiously optimistic with more of a smile on my face at the moment. I think it's come through nicely and to the voters of this province: thank you very much for the confidence you have put in us as the DA again.
"Of course, it's not final. The chickens aren't all home to roost yet, and we have a bit of time to go."
But when asked if he was at least confident of getting a majority vote, he responded "yes".
Meanwhile, the IEC in the province said it would be able to announce the results only at noon on Friday.
The IEC's provincial head, Courtney Sampson, said voting, counting and capturing of the results in 18 of the 25 municipalities in the Western Cape were completed. Among the seven outstanding were bigger municipalities like the city of Cape Town and Stellenbosch.
Others, like George, Kynsna and Plettenberg Bay, had issues outstanding that had to be dealt with first.
"We’ve got 78% done of what we needed to do which I think is a very high number and I know that the anxiety levels are quite high at the moment – of people to know exactly what is going on.
"But I am really torn between being able to satisfy that particular need with political parties and the media on the one hand, and the really exceptionally exhausted staff in the capturing sites at the moment," said Sampson.
He revealed that he had had to make a call as to whether to allow exhausted IEC staff to push through until late Thursday or allow them to rest and complete the work on Friday.