I just spoke to Gareth Stokes, editor with MoneyWeek SA, who I interviewed for my latest investment report and video. It's election day in South Africa, and I wanted an on-the-ground report about how things were going. Here's Gareth's take on the day so far...

It's 18:15 and the voting is well underway. Voting stations opened at 07:00 and will close at 21:00 so there's still quite a way to go. I drove by some of the local stations and the queues are long; but everything is proceeding peacefully. Took me two hours from beginning to end to cast my votes. Counting begins after 9pm and we will probably have a good indication of the final results within 48 hours. Pre-election polls (not as accurate as those used in the US) forecast 67% for the ruling party (African National Congress) and around 13% for the next biggest party, the Democratic Alliance. Incidentally there are 26 parties on the national ballot - of which eight are expected to secure 99% of the vote (meaning the other 18 share 1% and are pretty much non-entities). Electoral officials expect more than 80% of the 23m registered voters to make their mark. What else can I say - it's been a very quiet and uneventful day. There was a crime related shooting at a rural voting station early this morning (one of the electoral officers was wounded in an attempted robbery) and there have been one or two claims of ballot fixing (involving 100 ballot papers)...

I'll post again tomorrow if there are any results... And I have more to share in Taipan Insider tomorrow.