5 important things happening in South Africa today
·9 May 2019
Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:
- The ANC has taken an early lead in the 2019 elections as ballot counting gets underway. In the early hours on Thursday morning, around 1.9 million votes had already been processed, with the ANC at around 53% of the vote, the DA on 28% and the EFF at 7%. [EWN]
- Despite being praised for pulling off a free and fair election, the IEC has faced some worrying incidents. Some people managed to remove the ink marker from their fingers after voting, and other parties demonstrating how they were able to be scanned for voting at different voting stations. [TimesLive]
- Scandal-hit Steinhoff has finally reported its restated financials for the 2017 financial year, showing a R57 billion operating loss. The company blamed writedowns for the loss as it cleans up its balance sheet. Writedowns have already topped R200 billion since revealing fraud that left it on the brink of collapse. [Reuters]
- The IAAF has stated that South African athlete Caster Semenya may compete with men, without any restriction. This comes a week after Semenya lost a bid to stop the body from forcing female athletes with high testosterone levels to medically reduce them. Semenya has 30 days to appeal the ruling. [IOL]
- The South African rand inched upward early on Tuesday, bouncing back from the previous session’s losses as investors betting on President Cyril Ramaphosa securing a big enough election majority. On Thursday the rand was at R14.40 to the dollar, R18.72 to the pound and R16.11 to the euro.
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