JOHANNESBURG: South Africa´s ruling ANC was on track on Friday to score its worst electoral result ever, with the latest tallies showing voters deserted the party in droves and ended its 30-year political dominance.
The African National Congress (ANC) is now all but certain to fall below 50 percent of the vote, forcing the party to seek a coalition partner to have enough backing to name a president and form a government.
This marks an historic evolution in the country´s democratic journey, as the party has enjoyed an absolute parliamentary majority since 1994, when its then leader Nelson Mandela led the nation out of white minority rule and into democracy.
With more than two thirds of the votes cast in Wednesday´s general election counted, the ANC remained in the lead but with a score below 42 percent, compared to the 57 percent it won in 2019 and far off the 62 percent secured by Mandela in 1994.
As votes continued to be validated, data from the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) showed the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA) held second place with 22.64 percent.
But it was not a surge by the DA that cut into the ANC´s vote share.
In third place was former president Jacob Zuma´s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) on 12 percent, a surprise score for a party founded barely six months ago as a vehicle for the former ANC chief.
The final results are expected at the weekend, but with the trends clear and the votes stacking up on the IEC website, politicians and pundits were turning their attention to the prospects of an ANC-led coalition.