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Bate Felix and Alexander Winning

SAfrica heads for coalition as ANC set for big fall

Projections indicate the dominant ANC will get 40.5 per cent of the vote when full results are in. (AP PHOTO)

South African political parties have geared up for coalition talks as the governing African National Congress looked set to fall well short of a majority in this week's election, the first time this has happened in 30 years of democracy.

With results in from 54.9 per cent of polling stations, the party of the late Nelson Mandela had 42.1 per cent of votes, a precipitous drop from the 57.5 per cent of votes it secured in the last national election in 2019.

While the ANC looked likely to remain the largest political force, voters appear to have punished the former liberation movement for years of decline.

The ANC had won every previous national election since the historic 1994 vote that ended white minority rule, but in the past decade South Africans have watched the economy stagnate, unemployment and poverty climb and infrastructure crumble, leading to regular power outages.

Projections by South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research indicated the ANC would get 40.5 per cent when full results are in.

The pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA) was in second place on 23.7 per cent. 

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa
An embarrassing showing for the ANC risks fuelling a challenge to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

A new party led by former president Jacob Zuma, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), was at 10.8 per cent and eating into ANC support, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma's home province.

MK had overtaken the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), currently the third biggest party in parliament, which was sitting on 9.6 per cent.

The results page on the electoral commission's website, which had been updating seamlessly since the start of the count, went blank for roughly two hours early on Friday due to a technical problem.

"The data in the data centre remains intact and the results have not been compromised ... Result processing continues unaffected," the commission said in a statement.

By law the election commission has seven days to release full provisional results, but election officials have said they are planning for a Sunday announcement.

Political parties' share of the vote will determine the number of seats they get in the National Assembly, which then elects the next president.

That could still be the ANC's leader, incumbent President Cyril Ramaphosa. 

However, an embarrassing showing at the polls risks fuelling a leadership challenge.

ANC chairman Gwede Mantashe said on Thursday that the ANC still wanted to win a majority. 

"A coalition is not our plan; it is a consequence. We will deal with that consequence when it happens," he said.

Investors and the business community have voiced concern over the prospect of the ANC entering a coalition with the EFF, which is calling for the seizure of white-owned farms and the nationalisation of mines and banks, or with Zuma's MK, which also talks about land confiscation.

Though the DA says it wants to oust the ruling party, its leader John Steenhuisen has not ruled out a partnership to block what he has called a "doomsday coalition" with the ANC bringing the EFF or MK into government.

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