Ongoing

  1. ElectionsHot
  2. US mid-termsHeating up
  3. AICooling
Newsbrief

Western Cape police name election hotspots in three areas

Published

Ongoing: Elections Hot

Empty school hall with plain wooden voting booths in rows, lit by morning light from high windows.

Western Cape police say operations are in place for the local government elections, which begin with special voting on Monday. Provincial Police Commissioner Sizakhele Dyantyi said most hotspots are in Cape Town, Knysna and Vredenburg.

Dyantyi spoke on Sunday at the launch of the provincial operations centre of the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC). She said police are being deployed to specific hotspots. Police assured South Africans of a safe and secure environment in which to vote.

Dyantyi said the operational plan has the approval of NatJoints. She told the launch: "The operational plan has already been approved; hence, I have also mentioned that we did get the thumbs up because we had presented our plan to the NatJoints."

Key facts

Who
Sizakhele Dyantyi (Provincial Police Commissioner, Western Cape); Electoral Commission of South Africa (Electoral body running the local government elections); Western Cape police (Police service providing election security)
What
Western Cape police said operations for the local government elections, beginning with special voting on Monday, are in place. Provincial Police Commissioner Sizakhele Dyantyi, speaking at the launch of the IEC's provincial operations centre on Sunday, said most identified hotspots are in Cape Town, Knysna and Vredenburg and that police are being deployed to specific hotspots.
When
2 November 2026
Where
Western Cape, Cape Town, Knysna
Status
Reported

Elections Hot

What you need to know

Voting in the 2026 Local Government Elections is under way at 23,696 stations, and the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) reported a smooth start on 4 November. Stations opened at 7am and close at 9pm, and by 10am preliminary figures showed 3,523,691 voters had cast ballots.

There were problems: unused ballot papers were stolen from Mnyameni Secondary School near Durban, police opened a case, and the IEC relieved the station staff of duty. Some voters in Tshwane said they were turned away for wearing party shirts, but the IEC denied this and said only mayoral candidates' entourages were barred.

ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe told members not to query the results or discredit the IEC, while the IEC said false online claims show routine procedures as fraud.

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US mid-terms Heating up

What you need to know

Democrats won back both the US House and Senate in the midterm elections held on 3 November, according to media projections. Exit polls showed voters were angry about high prices and the direction of the country, and rebuked President Donald Trump.

Before the vote, US forces struck targets on Qeshm Island in Iran, while Republicans struggled to defend the war against Iran on the campaign trail. Iranian officials said US voters rejected the war, and Tehran stayed on high alert for possible new US strikes.

Markets reacted, with the dollar hitting a one-month low and the rand firming to around R16.55, as analysts pointed to fears of gridlock in Washington.

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AI Cooling

What you need to know

Nvidia has told its cloud computing clients to sell at least 51% of their services to non-Chinese companies, according to five people with knowledge of the matter. Anthropic said it has committed to spend close to $900bn on AI infrastructure, and that its computing costs are rising faster than its revenues.

Elsewhere, reports from unnamed sources say OpenAI's latest funding round is falling short of expectations, and a judge let the NAACP pollution case against xAI proceed. In South Africa, the VAST AI investment scheme went offline on 30 October after withdrawals marked approved did not arrive, according to a news investigation.

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