Pretoria - By 9am Thursday, the African National Congress (ANC) seemed destined to retain its majority hold on the National Assembly after voting tallies at a quarter of voting districts in the country had been captured on the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) results system.
The votes counted and captured stood at around three million, with the ANC obtaining 55 percent of the vote, followed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) with 26 percent. If the trend continues throughout the day, this would mean the ANC would see its significant majority reduced and support for the DA increasing by a few percentage points from 22 percent of the vote in the 2014 polls to over 26 percent.
Early indications are that the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) might see an increase in its support from the six percent it obtained in 2014.
The Freedom Front Plus are surprise contenders in the top five race, having obtained 101,492 votes so far, but this could change as the counting and capturing process for around 75 percent of voting districts was not yet complete.
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) had around 50 000 votes, bearing in mind very few results from the KwaZulu-Natal province, its stronghold, had been captured on the results board.