ANC takes powerful lead

JOHANNESBURG – The ruling ANC enjoyed a powerful lead in preliminary results yesterday while the DA’s official opposition status seemed safe after South Africa’s biggest post-apartheid elections.

According to results released at the national election centre in Pretoria, the African National Congress had won 4 129 456 votes out of the 6 446 763 votes counted by 13h30.The Democratic Alliance was in a safe second place with 1 129 738 votes.New kid on the block Congress of the People remained in the third spot with 519 008 votes.Cope’s arrival has changed the scene of politics in South Africa and contributed to the April 22 elections being described as the most exciting since the end of apartheid, with the biggest number of voters – more than 23 million – registered to vote.The ANC breakaway party, which is only a few months old, seemed to be making dents in opposition support in the Eastern Cape specifically, where it had so far received 197 537 votes, compared to the United Democratic Movement’s 61 325 in a province historically known to have a strong UDM support base.But the ANC remained king in the Eastern Cape with 1 064 142 votes.The only province the ruling party seemed likely to lose was in the Western Cape, where the DA was in the top spot with 444 045 votes and the ANC with 260 678.Cope had so far received 81 360 votes in the Western Cape and the Independent Democrats 58 053.Nationally, the Inkatha Freedom Party was in fourth place with 182 468 votes by 13h30, with the ID following with 87 819 votes.Creeping up on the ID on the national front, was the UDM with 77 706 votes.The Freedom Front Plus followed at 61 727 and the African Christian Democratic Party with 48 860 votes.Trailing the list was the A Party with 1 033 votes nationally, preceded by Women Forward with 1 500 votes.Both parties are new on South Africa’s political landscape, contesting elections for the first time in 2009.In Kwazulu-Natal, which was expected to be a race between the ANC and the IFP, the ruling party took 460 762 votes while the IFP had to settle for 163 834.Cope hardly featured in the province with just 7 046 votes. The DA led the fledgling party by a large margin with 47 709 votes.In the country’s economic powerhouse, the ANC led with 634 626 votes, followed by the DA with 270 859 votes and Cope with 72 504 votes.The Freedom Front Plus also featured in Gauteng with 15 756 votes.There was little contest in the ANC’s traditional stronghold Limpopo, with the party taking 377 115 votes of the 447 904 votes counted in the province.The Northern Cape revealed that it was not as highly contested as expected, with the ANC garnering 119 460 votes compared to its closest rivals in the province, Cope and the DA with 34 056 and 26 485 respectively.The ID came in fourth with 11 104 votes according to the latest results. – Nampa