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full screen A boy kicks a ball in front of a painting depicting Nelson Mandela in Soweto. Archive image. Photo: AP/TT
With almost all votes counted, it is clear that the former freedom movement ANC is losing the parliamentary majority the party has had in South Africa since the fall of apartheid 30 years ago.
Father of the country Nelson Mandela’s party is admittedly the largest. But with 99 percent of the votes counted, the ANC has received just over 40 percent of them and needs to find collaborations to form a government and get Cyril Ramaphosa re-elected as president.
The final result is to be formally announced by the independent electoral commission responsible for Wednesday’s election. But the opposition is hailing the preliminary figures as an important breakthrough in a country still struggling with poverty and inequality.
The largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), gets about 21 percent of the vote and former president Jacub Zuma’s new MK party comes third with just over 14 percent.
The ANC has been blamed for failing to provide people with basic government services such as water, electricity and decent housing.
– For the past 30 years, we have said that the ANC’s majority must be broken to save South Africa, and now we have done it, says Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen.
Voter turnout, around 59 percent, is the lowest in South Africa’s history, the Social Research Foundation think tank told the BBC.