Polls In South Africa Show That The Anc Is Leading But Still Well Short Of A 50% Majority

With the partial election results on Friday placing the ruling African National Congress well short of a majority, South Africa was moving closer to the reality of a national coalition government for the first time and a series of intricate negotiations to achieve that.

The ANC, which has maintained a majority for 30 years since apartheid ended, received slightly under 42% of the national vote in Wednesday’s election, according to the provisional results as counting proceeded, with more than 65% of ballots counted across the nation’s nine provinces. Even though there was still some way to go, that was a significant decrease from the 57.5% it won in the most recent national election in 2019.

Although the ANC was still mostly predicted to win, observers noted that it was rare for it to be so far from 50% thus early in the election process.

The electoral commission has declared that the final results will be made public by Sunday, if not earlier. All of the major parties said they would wait for those final figures before starting coalition discussions, but the nation’s attention is now firmly focused on who the ANC may approach to share power over the continent’s most developed economy in the event that it loses its majority.

Nomvula Mokonyane, the ANC’s deputy secretary general, announced that the party’s leadership will get together on Friday to “reflect on what is good for the country.”