South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has taken an early lead as vote counting continued after Wednesday’s national and provincial elections.
With 37.62 percent of the ballots counted as at 12.30pm (1030GMT), statistics published by the Independent Electoral Commission showed the ANC in the lead, having won 55.9 percent of the vote against 24.8 percent for the main opposition Democratic Alliance.
The militant Economic Freedom Fighters was third, with 8.9 percent of the vote while Freedom Front Plus was a distant fourth at just under 3 percent of the counted votes.
Final results are expected to be announced by Saturday.
The party that wins most seats in parliament selects the president, who will be sworn in on May 25.
JN/APA