Johannesburg - Preliminary election results show the DA maintaining its Western Cape stronghold, while racing neck and neck with the ANC for the city of Tshwane.
By midday on Thursday, the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) in the Western Cape had captured over half of the votes cast.
“We have already counted 1.6 million people and that is a count out of 2.94 million (registered) people...” provincial electoral officer Courtney Sampson said.
By noon the Democratic Alliance had obtained just under 60 percent of the vote in the Western Cape. This compared to just over 50 percent in 2009.
The African National Congress had around 33 percent of the vote in the Western Cape, followed by the Economic Freedom Fighters with more than two percent.
The African Christian Democratic Party and Freedom Front Plus stood at a little over one percent each in the province.
The Congress of the People dropped to under one percent in the Western Cape.
DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko said the party was growing and making inroads in the Western Cape.
Mazibuko was excited about the lead the party had in the province, the only province not governed by the ANC.
The DA had surpassed its 2009 numbers with only half of this year's votes counted so far.
“We are very upbeat and we are growing significantly in this election,” Mazibuko said.
She predicted the DA would do well in Gauteng once all the stations had submitted their results.
“We will do very well once the results for Tshwane and Johannesburg are received. We had a very good premier candidate in Mmusi Maimane,” she said.
Gauteng numbers for the ANC and the DA were fairly even in the City of Tshwane.
Out of the 35,719 votes counted, the ANC secured 15,765 with 14,659 votes for the DA.
The FF Plus was a distant third in Tshwane with 6.29 percent of the vote (2248), while the EFF garnered 1881.
By midday on Thursday, the ANC was leading nationally in the election race with over four million votes. This was over 62 percent of the counted votes.
The DA secured 1.7m votes (23.01 percent).
Julius Malema's EFF was in third position with 362,063 votes (4.73 percent).
Meanwhile, the IEC said results from the eThekwini metro municipality were likely to be the last to be finalised in KwaZulu-Natal.
In Durban, the province's chief electoral officer Mosery Mawethu said counting of votes was continuing at three Durban polling stations by mid-morning.
All counting at the rest of the province's 4746 polling stations and capturing of the results was under way.
The final capturing of results in the province was expected to be completed by midnight on Thursday.
Sapa