The recently formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party has sneaked to third position as vote counting continued in South Africa on Friday, amassing about 11 percent of counted ballots.
Results of Wednesday’s national and provincial elections, as published by the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), showed that the MK had garnered 10.98 percent of the counted votes as of 9.30am (0730 GMT) against 41.86 percent for the governing African National Congress (ANC) and 23.67 percent for second-placed Democratic Alliance (DA).
The results showed that, with more than 55 percent of the vote counted so far, the MK party – which is fronted by former South African president Jacob Zuma – had chipped into the ANC’s and DA’s overnight tallies.
Going into Thursday night, the ANC’s tally stood at around 42.3 percent while the DA had amassed about 24 percent of the total ballots.
ANC chairman Gwede Mantashe described the performance by MK, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, as the “biggest surprise” for his own party.
Latest results showed that MK was leading in KwaZulu-Natal, with 43.55 percent of valid ballots, while the ANC was a distant second, with 18.75 percent of the vote. The ANC’s former main KwaZulu-Natal rival, the Inkhata Freedom Party, had only managed to get 15.76 percent of the vote at the time of going to press.
“We appreciated that there was going to be a huge contest, but it came from an angle that we did not really expect. We thought the IFP was going to give us hard times, but now the MK Party has punished both the ANC and the IFP. That was the biggest surprise,” Mantashe told news channel eNCA late Thursday.
Pollsters have predicted that the ANC could see its parliamentary majority drop below 50 percent for the first time since South Africa’s independence in 1994.
Final results of Wednesday’s poll are expected by end of Friday or early Saturday, with the party with the highest number of seats in the 400-member National Assembly expected to choose a president.
In the event that the ANC fails to garner more than 50 percent of the vote, it would be expected to form a coalition government with one or more of the opposition parties.
JN/APA