In a shocking turn of events, M-Net has revealed that none of the top five contestants on The Voice South Africa will be going home on Sunday’s upcoming show. In addition, M-Net has also given Luke Lovemore and PJ Pretorius, who received the fewest votes in the previous two weeks, the option to return to the show. Therefore, voting lines are officially closed.
In a press release, the channel admits that it “was alerted about alleged paid-for marketing efforts (boosted posts) on some talent’s personal social media accounts. Paid-for marketing, which is against the rules of the competition, can cause voting spikes which could provide an unfair advantage. This prompted M-Net to conduct an investigation into the way in which these efforts could have affected the outcome of the voting results. It was ascertained that only the past two voting periods, in which Luke Lovemore and PJ Pretorius left the competition, could have been affected.”
Therefore, in the interest of fairness and transparency, the top seven will compete for the public’s vote on Sunday (2 July 2017). “Despite our best efforts, we could not determine with certainty whether misconduct took place and what the impact was on the voting results. We believe the fairest solution under these circumstances is to give all the affected talent another chance,” says Nkateko Mabaso, GM for M-Net South Africa. “The Voice SA has proved to be an excellent platform for launching the careers of new singing talent and we would like encourage our viewers to continue to vote for their favourites”
This comes at a rather uncomfortable time as the show comes to an end with an epic finale on the 9th of July. The winner of The Voice SA will be determined by the votes of the viewing public and the results are independently computed by Deloitte and Touche and confirmed against the vote results determined by M-Net.
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