Children play at a building in Bekkersdal as voting takes place on Wednesday. Picture: PUXLEY MAKGATHO
Children play at a building in Bekkersdal as voting takes place on Wednesday. Picture: PUXLEY MAKGATHO

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THE African National Congress (ANC) was heading for its fifth landslide election victory, but with a loss of about 3% of its majority and a handful of seats in Parliament, according to results released late on Thursday.

With reporting from districts more than three-quarters complete, the ruling party was standing at 62.8 %, with the Democratic Alliance (DA) second with 22.2 %, and Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) third with 5.4 %.

The figures confirmed pre-poll forecasts that voters would inflict relatively limited punishment on the ANC for the Nkandla scandal, sluggish service delivery and enduring economic hardship for most South Africans.

"I think the ANC will get above 60 % and... I think they will also get above 50 % in Gauteng," DA leader Helen Zille conceded in a television interview at the national results centre in Pretoria.

Her stated hope had been to deny the ANC an outright majority in Gauteng, after a bold campaign headed by Mmusi Maimane.

Political analyst Richard Calland said the national results showed that with its most competitive all-race election to date, South Africa had become "a two-party show", with the fledgling EFF providing excitement, but no proof that it would turn into a lasting political force.

"Whether they are going to sustain themselves, we simply don’t know," he told eNCA television.

Malema’s militant outfit had its best showing in Limpopo — his home province — and North West, home to the strike-ridden platinum sector where miners turned out in numbers to vote on Wednesday.

The Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) said at this stage the percentage of spoilt ballot papers stood at 1.37 %. In the 2009 elections, the figure was 1.34 %. This would suggest that the Vote No campaign launched last month by former ANC Cabinet minister Ronnie Kasrils, urging voters to spoil their ballots or support smaller parties, did not gain much traction.

Mr Kasrils said on Thursday he had voted neither for the ANC nor the DA.

IEC chief electoral officer Mosotho Moepya stressed, however, that the size of the spoilt vote might yet shift as counting continued.

"We can only determine that once the last voting district has been captured," he told reporters at the results centre.

Mr Moepya said ballots cast by expatriates at embassies abroad were "in different stages of arrival".

Though restive townships like Bekkersdal outside of Johannesburg were calm on voting day, the election was marred by the shooting of an ANC member outside a polling station in KwaDukuza, KwaZulu-Natal.

ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu said the party suspected it was motivated by political rivalry.

"This comrade was killed while sitting at the ANC desk outside a voting station," he said.

Another person was shot in KwaMashu in KwaZulu-Natal.

Gauteng

The ANC had a healthy lead in Gauteng with 53.89 % of votes counted so far by Thursday afternoon, compared to the DA’s 32.30% of the ballot.

The party had 727,241 votes in the province compared to the DA’s 435,926.

The result was, however, expected to shift somewhat as counting in the province had proven slower than in the rest of the country.

By 5.30pm on Thursday, the EFF had 8.36 % or 112,801 votes.

There were 6-million registered voters in Gauteng.

Northern Cape

Counting was complete in Northern Cape and Mpumalanga, with the ANC winning 64.4%, or 272,053 out of 422,431 valid votes, and retaining outright control of the province.

The DA seemed set to once again be the official opposition in the Northern Cape — as they were after the 2004 general elections — with 100,916 votes, giving it 23.89%.

The EFF received 20,951 votes (4.96%), putting them in third place.

Voter turn-out in the province was 71.29 %.

Mpumalanga

Mpumalanga was the second province where preliminary results were concluded on Thursday evening.

The ANC won 78.2% of the vote in the province, preliminary results indicated late on Thursday, achieving a landslide victory in the province, as it did in the Northern Cape.

The traditional stronghold of the ruling party gave the ANC a commanding 78.33 % victory with 1,045,409 out of the 1,336,259 total valid votes.

The DA came in a distant second with a 10.40 % of the provincial vote, from 138,990 votes. The EFF got 83,589 votes, or 6.26 %.

Tshwane

The ANC enjoyed an early lead in the City of Tshwane, according to preliminary election results released by 6pm on Thursday.

Out of the 151,911 votes counted, the ANC won 93,397 (61.48%) and the DA had 34,239, or 22.54 %.

The EFF were third with 9.90 % of the vote or 3,721 of the ballots, while the Freedom Front Plus had 2.45 %.

Western Cape

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The DA was heading for a resounding victory in the Western Cape, with its majority stretching to just under 60% in the province it has controlled since winning 51% of votes in 2009.

Ninety percent of votes in the province had been counted by late Thursday, and the final tally was expected before day’s end.

The DA appeared set to retain the Western Cape after 90% of votes cast were captured by 4pm on Thursday.

Early indications were that the party was set to increase its support.

The DA had taken just over a million of the votes captured so far — an almost 60 % share of the ballots, compared to 51% in 2009.

The ANC attracted just under 33% of voters in the province.

Voting information

It was unclear whether the numbers would change much, with the results from only 119 voting districts still outstanding.

New kids on the block, the EFF, caused an upset for other smaller parties, garnering 2% of the Western Cape vote so far.

The African Christian Democratic Party was hovering at just over 1% of the vote, while all other parties, including the Congress of the People and the Freedom Front Plus, had so far failed to reach 1%.

Party representatives were trying to calculate how many of the 42 seats in the Western Cape legislature they would fill. A clearer picture of seat allocation would only emerge later on Thursday night, an IEC official said.

Earlier, in the day, IEC provincial electoral officer Courtney Sampson said it was the first time vote-capturing had progressed so speedily.

There was a prediction that voter turnout could have increased this election.

"The assumption that I make is that it could be quite a turnout," he said.

Eastern Cape

In the Eastern Cape, the ANC looked headed for a runaway victory with over 70% compared to 15% for the DA, which had hoped to make inroads in the province.

Vote counting is expected to be concluded for all provinces by Saturday.

Sapa