The ANC remained in pole position in the 2011 local election race, taking 62.52 percent of the votes across the country by 10am on Thursday.
The ANC had about 10 million votes to the DA's 3.9 million (23.78 percent of the national total).
Results continued filtering into the Independent Electoral Commission centre in Pretoria, where politicians were arriving to check how their parties were faring.
Nationally, some 23 million people registered to vote, in the poll described as a “two-horse race” between the ANC and the DA. The total voter turnout by 10am stood at 5 933 265 people.
The Inkatha Freedom Party followed the DA with 608 740 votes (3.48 percent). The ANC breakaway party, the Congress of the People, got 476 633 votes (2.84 percent).
The IFP's breakaway party, the National Freedom Party, trounced other established opposition parties to make it to fourth place with 412 985 votes (2.36 percent).
Meanwhile, the ANC has expressed its disappointment at losing Midvaal in Gauteng to the DA.
“We are sorry we didn't take it … we really wanted it,” ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said at the IEC's results centre in Pretoria on Thursday .
“The ANC must work harder, we are not doing well in the minority areas,” Mantashe said.
He said the ANC needed to “invest more time” in areas such as Eldorado Park, southern Johannesburg, which had “shifted” its vote.
In the hotly contested Western Cape, ANC leader Marius Fransman said the province's rural areas were heading for a “a lot of hung councils” and it was still anybody's guess who had won the Cape Town metro.
“In the rural areas we won some and we lost some. There will be a lot of hung councils,” he said, listing Oudtshoorn, Swellendam and Worcester among these.
“The metro, we don't know,” Fransman said.
IEC spokesman Trevor Davids said it hoped to have provisional results for all parts of the province by early evening.
“The metro is still largely outstanding. We are really pushing for the end of this day and hope to have a provisional result for the province,” he said.
In Ethekwini, however, by 11am the ANC were leading with 52.14 percent of the vote in the Durban metro, followed by the DA with 26.30 percent.
The ANC had 82 761 votes and the DA 41 743 votes as the count continued.
The Inkatha Freedom Party followed the DA, with 5,02 percent or 7966 votes and the National Freedom Party, an IFP breakaway, 4,06 percent or 6440 votes.
In all, 1.7 million people registered to vote in the metro. A total of 158 726 valid votes had been counted so far.
With around 70 percent of the votes counted, Nelson Mandela Bay was also well in the hands of the ANC, which had 51.4 percent of the vote.
The DA had 41.4 percent and Cope 4.9 percent.
DA Eastern Cape leader Athol Trollip said which ever way the province turned out, voters in the metro had indicated they were unhappy with the ANC's service.
He said the DA had fared extremely well in the northern parts of Port Elizabeth, specifically in Uitenhage and Despatch.
“Our performance in those areas was historic and sets us up for an assault on the metro in the next election.”
The party had made inroads across the Eastern Cape, winning in numerous of its non-traditional areas, even picking up a seat in the ANC-dominated town of Flagstaff.
Trollip said the party's retention of Baviaans, the only municipality it controls in the Eastern Cape, was “heroic”.
“Across the Eastern Cape we doubled and quadrupled our support, whether it was Grahamstown or Queenstown.
Trollip said smaller parties had kept the ANC in power in the Kouga municipality, which includes Jeffreys Bay, where the seats were split 15 to the ANC and 14 to opposition parties.
He predicted, though, that this would be the last election for smaller parties.
“This election will spell the end of smaller parties and it is now clear that the race in future will be between the ANC and DA with Cope in a distant third.”
Cope's Chief Whip in Parliament Thozaqmile Botha said he expected the party to gain more of the vote in Nelson Mandela Bay as the results still to be counted were from townships where the party was strong.
He said the party would never again work with the ANC, but he was silent on co-operation with the DA.
“We've criticised the ANC for not delivering in that metro,” he said.
“We would not want to be associated with non service delivery.” - Sapa