As of Thursday evening, it was still far too early to get a clear picture of the final election results. But some details are starting to come into focus out of the general electoral blur.

1. There are still many unanswered questions about what went down on voting day.

Although the story of the elections has now largely turned to vote counting and results, there are still difficult questions - which the IEC has not shown much appetite for answering - about what happened on voting day.

The claims from the IEC that the long queues were largely the result of high voter turnout seem increasingly implausible amid a plethora of eyewitness accounts of malfunctioning scanners and inefficient voter processing - as well as statistical modelling suggesting that turnout may in fact have fallen quite considerably since 2019.

IEC chairperson Mosotho Moepya insisted at a Thursday afternoon briefing that the elections body was not "defensive" about criticism: "We are going to listen to and observe the things that are being raised," he said.

But in totality, the IEC has yet to acknowledge that significant problems were clearly experienced in many parts of the country. The reality is, however, that since 1994 it has been unthinkable for people to wait as long as nine hours to vote - as was the case for some on 29 May.

2. The IEC seems to be changing its tune...