SOUTH AFRICA ELECTIONS 2024

It will ‘take years’ for ANC to recover losses: journalist

“This has been an absolutely historic election. I think the ANC is in absolute shock, they did not expect that they will be under 45 [percent] so the fact that they are going to have to seriously look for a coalition party starts now,” said South African journalist and political commentator Crystal Orderson, who covered the election in Cape Town.

“I think the next 48 hours [are key], the final results coming out, with KZN the biggest shock. But if you were on the ground this is [reflective of] what voters have told you. I think the ANC has just refused to listen. It’s going to take years for the ANC to ever regain the upper hand.

“A spectacular fall for Africa’s oldest liberation movement,” she added.

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About 50 people arrested this week, police minister says

South Africa’s Police Minister Bheki Cele told local media that “about 50 people” were arrested during the voting period, which began on May 29.

Of more than 23,000 polling stations around the country, he said around 632 of them were known to be “troublesome”.

Cele was speaking at the Electoral Commission’s results centre in Midrand.

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A ‘reality-check election’ for many parties

“I think with all political parties who are here at the results operations centre at Gallagher Estate, you can visibly see signs of concern on their faces. You can see signs of, what does this election mean for us?” said analyst Sanusha Naidu, from the Institute for Global Dialogue.

“It’s a reality-check election for many of these political parties, including the ANC,” she told Al Jazeera from the election results headquarters.

“I think the idea of when the talks around working together, coalition politics or coalition governing will be starting to happen, some parties like the DA … have indicated that they are not going to dismiss any talks with the ANC,” she noted, saying that that was a promising sign.

Naidu said that going forward, she would be monitoring the “maturity of the political parties that are going to go into coalition talks and how they are going to navigate those discussions”, as well as “what are going to be some of those complexities, how are they going to work together, and what are going to be some of the non-negotiable spaces and the issues that they are going to have.”

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More than 70 percent of votes completed

The African National Congress (ANC) had 41.7 percent of the vote after the election commission released results from 71.3 percent of polling stations on Friday.

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ANC will likely remain ‘largest party in the country’: analyst

Pauline Bax, the deputy director of the Africa Program at International Crisis Group, says it is crucial that the ANC now starts “urgently thinking about the coalition possibility”.

“So far, it seems to have been in denial about the option that it might have to enter into a coalition,” Bax told Al Jazeera.

The choices for the party are “quite clear”, she said.

There are “three opposition parties that did well … the ANC did not do well, but still has a very large chunk of the vote.

“The options are quite clear … and what type of alliance the ANC would form, there is not much guesswork there,” she said, adding that the party will likely remain “at the helm”.

“President Cyril Ramaphosa might keep his job … it’s likely,” Bax said. “So the ANC will still be the largest party in the country.”

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Early results left investors ‘swinging between anxiety’

Bloomberg is reporting that early results from South Africa, where the ANC looks set to fail at winning the majority vote, has left “investors swinging between anxiety over the different permutations that coalition may take”.

It reported that ahead of the vote, it seemed that the governing party would be much closer to the 50-percent mark that would have enabled it to join hands with a small party.

However, after half of the votes counted, ANC’s tally is hovering just under the 41-percent mark.

“We remain in something of a no-man’s-land at present, with the still-sizable uncertainty over the ANC’s final tally keeping most options for the next government on the table,” Ivailo Vesselinov, chief strategist at Emso Asset Management, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.

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Validation of results ongoing

A reminder that all votes in South Africa’s elections have been counted.

“The Election Commission is in the process of validating the results that’s why they are slow coming in,” Fahmida Miller, our correspondent in South Africa, says.

“The Election Commission said earlier that the final results should be announced by Sunday and that hasn’t changed yet. It appears that the turnout was around 58 percent.”

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Who are the potential coalition partners?

Based on the current results with just over 60 percent of the votes announced, the ANC may have no choice but to seek support from one of its larger rivals: the DA, MK or the EFF.

The price of a deal with either of those would likely be significant policy concessions by the ANC, as well as the offer of some senior government positions for its partner.

Investors and the business community would prefer a deal with the DA, which has received 23 percent of votes so far, and is seen as more market-friendly.

However, the ideological divide between the ANC and the leading opposition party is so wide as to make such a deal difficult.

Led by Julius Malema, a former leader of the ANC’s youth wing, the EFF may be a more natural fit for the ANC, but relations are tense between Malema and some ANC factions.

The EFF, on 9.5 percent of the vote, said in April it would partner with the ANC if it got the powerful post of finance minister.

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Election results will be ‘sobering’ for ruling party

Former ANC activist Lawson Naidoo said the vote results will be seen as a “sobering” moment for the governing party, which has become accustomed to comfortable margins of victory in past decades.

“Current predictions show the ANC likely to come in between 40 and 45 percent of the vote, which would be a significant reduction in their support, having obtained 57 percent in the previous election,” he told Al Jazeera. “So it’s a sobering election for the African National Congress.

“It seems that the primary beneficiary of the ANC’s drop in support has been Jacob Zuma’s new MK party. The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, seems to be staying relatively stable in the low 20 percents.”

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Nobody is going to resign, says ANC official

Despite the disappointing elections so far, ANC’s Deputy Secretary-General Nomvula Mokonyane said he would not resign.

“Nobody is going to resign. Collectively, all of us, we still are confident that he [Ramaphosa] has to remain the president of the ANC,” she told reporters at the results centre. “The leadership of the ANC will meet, structures of the ANC will be consulted. For now we are not talking to anybody.”

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

With over 60 percent of votes declared, ANC sits at the top but just under the 42 percent mark, followed by the DA at 23 percent.

The current result is about 15 percentage points lower than the ANC’s last election win.

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What is the DA party in South Africa?

The DA party currently has just under 23 percent of the votes.

In the last National Assembly, the DA had 84 seats.

Steenhuisen, 48, is the head of the DA and is eager to sell his party as one that will “rescue South Africa” from the ANC.

Many view the DA as a party that champions only the interests of the middle class, specifically those in its support base in the Western Cape, despite campaigning in a country where working-class Black people make up the bulk of the population.

While the DA remains the second-largest party after the ANC, it has struggled to rally support from Black voters. It opposes policies such as workplace race quotas introduced by Ramaphosa’s government to close economic gaps that have seen Black people perpetually disadvantaged.

This is why some voters and rivals criticise Steenhuisen and the DA for being unaware of the conditions of the majority of South Africans.

Steenhuisen himself has deflected accusations of representing an advantaged minority by saying South Africans are looking for competence.

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How is the president elected?

A reminder that South Africans do not directly vote for the president.

Instead, they elect 400 members of the National Assembly, which then selects the president by a simple majority – 201 or more votes.

If the ANC secures more than 50 percent of the vote, President Ramaphosa will most likely be re-elected as president to serve a second and final five-year term.

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How many people have voted in this election?

Out of a population of about 62 million, 27.79 million people were registered to vote.

According to the IEC, turnout was 58.58 percent which means about 16.2 million turned up to vote.

In 2019, 17.6 million people turned out to vote.

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EFF slams outage of IEC results dashboard

The EFF has criticised an almost two-hour outage of the IEC results dashboard, adding such incidents expose the electoral body’s “incompetence and inability to safeguard democracy”.

“This incompetence was first witnessed on the voting day when the VMD [voter management device] machines were not fully functional in many voting stations across the country,” a statement on X by the party said. “This resulted in long lines and a longer voting process which were not properly managed by the institution.

“The crash of the results dashboard for such a historical election is concerning and warrants a thorough investigation to ensure transparency and integrity in the electoral process.”

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How does the electoral system work in South Africa?

South Africa uses a closed-list propositional representation electoral system, allowing political parties to choose candidates based on their own internal party rules and processes.

Voters cast ballots for a party with associated candidates’ list determined before the election.

Voting is under a proportional system in which parties and candidates are competing for 400 seats in the National Assembly.

Parties on the national ballot will contest 200 of those seats while the other 200 are divided among the nine regions and contested by parties and independent candidates.

For the first time, voters received three ballots instead of two in this election. On each ballot, they had to choose one party or one candidate.

Two ballots will be used to elect the National Assembly, and the third one will be for the election of members of the provincial legislature in each province.

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When was the last election and what were the results?

The ANC has won every election since the end of apartheid in 1994 when Nelson Mandela became the country’s first Black president.

In 1994, the ANC won 62.5 percent of the vote. In 1999, it won 66.4 percent. In 2004, it reached its highest levels, clinching almost 70 percent of the vote. In 2009, it won nearly 66 percent, and in 2014, it won 62 percent.

In the last election in 2019, the ANC achieved its lowest margin of victory, winning 57.5 percent of the vote.

The official opposition DA has come second in the past five elections.

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Research group predicts National Assembly seat allocations

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), a scientific and technology research organisation, has given its predictions of the seat allocation of political parties in the National Assembly, according to the state broadcaster.

The CSIR said it predicts that the ANC is likely to lose its majority in the National Assembly and the DA will have a slight increase in its seats.

“For ANC, it is likely that they will end up with around 160 seats,” CSIR official Pravesh Debba was quoted as saying by SABC.

“DA is looking as if they will end up with about 87 and MK 58, and EFF 38.”

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Could the MK be a significant player in South Africa’s political landscape?

Former President Zuma is the wild card in this election. He was set to run for parliament but was kicked off the candidate list for the MK party by a last-minute court decision because of a 2021 conviction.

Now he’s fielding a stand-in and testing a new role as kingmaker.

Zuma is determined to be a thorn in the side of the ANC, with which he has since fallen out. With the MK, Zuma is looking to wrest power from his old party – if not nationally, then at least to split the ANC’s votes in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.

With just over 58 percent of the votes announced, MK sits third on the list with 11.3 percent.

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Western Cape votes expected to be finalised on Friday

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) in the Western Cape has said it hopes to finish capturing voting results today, with ballot counting in the province already completed, according to local media.

The statement comes despite the glitches experienced on IEC’s systems across the country on Friday morning.

The Western Cape is governed by the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) since 2009 and this is not expected to change in the latest elections.

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South Africa Elections Results 2024 ( 31/05/2024 12:04pm)

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Could the MK be a significant player in South Africa’s political landscape?

Former President Zuma is the wild card in this election. He was set to run for parliament but was kicked off the candidate list for the MK party by a last-minute court decision because of a 2021 conviction.

Now he’s fielding a stand-in and testing a new role as kingmaker.

Zuma is determined to be a thorn in the side of the ANC, with which he has since fallen out. With the MK, Zuma is looking to wrest power from his old party – if not nationally, then at least to split the ANC’s votes in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.

With just over 58 percent of the votes announced, MK sits third on the list with 11.3 percent.

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Western Cape votes expected to be finalised on Friday

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) in the Western Cape has said it hopes to finish capturing voting results today, with ballot counting in the province already completed, according to local media.

The statement comes despite the glitches experienced on IEC’s systems across the country on Friday morning.

The Western Cape is governed by the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) since 2009 and this is not expected to change in the latest elections.

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DA not in coalition talks right now: Party leader

South Africa’s Democratic Alliance party leader John Steenhuisen says the DA was not in coalition talks after this week’s election.

With almost 56 percent of the results announced, the DA currently sits second with 24 percent. The ruling ANC currently tops the table with just under 42 percent and will require the help of other parties to form a government.

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What does Zuma want?

Political analyst William Gumede, speaking about Zuma and the ANC, told Al Jazeera what he believes the former president, who now heads the MK, may want out of this election.

“I think what Zuma wants is two things. He’s not interested in being anywhere close to government. What he wants is a presidential pardon, so he is going to look for a coalition with a governing party at the national level that can give him a presidential pardon. He has got multiple corruption, racketeering charges, and has been trying for years to get out of it.

“He has run out of legal runway, has to face corruption charges, and is very likely to go to jail in his old age. What he wants to do is prevent that from happening. And the only way to prevent that from happening is to get a presidential pardon. So everything he does is based on that. He wants to get the high numbers [for the MK party] so he can get into a national coalition, where whoever is elected president gives him that pardon.”

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ANC likely to ‘accommodate’ left-wing parties for a coalition

Political analyst Sandile Swana says the ANC will win about 42 percent of the votes.

“So they lost 15 percentage points of the votes compared with the last election – down from 57 percent to give and take 42 percent,” he told Al Jazeera from Krugersdorp. “Hence losing majority in South Africa and overall control of the country.”

According to Swana, for a coalition, the ANC would have to accommodate the left-wing parties, which are the MK Party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, and the African Transformation Movement, among others.

“In the absence of that, you will have perpetual protests. Big businesses in South Africa are calling for the ANC to form a coalition with smaller parties and exclude other big parties… So the most likely scenario is where the ANC accommodates the left.”

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What happened on Thursday?

The first day of vote counting got under way in South Africa on Thursday after the country went to the polls a day earlier in a crucial vote for the governing ANC.

• Polls officially closed at 9pm (19:00 GMT) on Wednesday, but long voter queues and delays kept many polling stations open until about 3am (01:00 GMT) on Thursday.
• Vote counting began shortly after polls closed and continued throughout the day.
• By 4pm (14:00 GMT), results were concluded for 22.6 percent of all voting districts, the country’s Electoral Commission said.
• Just before 11pm (21:00 GMT), more than 40 percent of the vote was tallied. Counting continues into Friday.
• Zuma’s MK party gained ground in KwaZulu-Natal, and the main opposition DA took an early lead in the Western Cape. Meanwhile, the ANC struggled more than it did in previous elections.
• Analysts say it is unlikely the ANC will get a 50 percent majority, which means the party will have to seek coalition partners to govern.

Final results are expected to be announced by Sunday.

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Man arrested for election fraud in Cape Town

A man who allegedly voted twice in the polls has been arrested in Cape Town, according to local media.

Western Cape provincial Police Commissioner Thembisile Patekile said the 64-year-old was arrested at Hoërskool Jan Van Riebeeck in the suburb of Gardens.

Patekile added the man first voted at Jan Van Riebeeck Primary, adding that he will be charged with election fraud.

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All votes have been counted

Fahmida Miller, Al Jazeera reporter in South Africa, says all the votes have been counted.

“The Election Commission is in the process of validating the results that’s why they are slow coming in,” Miller said, reporting from Midrand.

“The Election Commission said earlier that the final results should be announced by Sunday and that hasn’t changed yet. It appears that the turnout was around 58 percent.”

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Is the ANC heading for a coalition?

Ahead of the polls, analysts had predicted the ruling ANC would likely not be able to gain an outright majority and would need the help of other smaller parties to form a government.

With nearly half of the votes counted, the ANC is hovering closer to the 40-percent mark than 50, making it very likely it will need the help of the bigger parties for a coalition.

If the ANC performs much worse than expected, there is a slim chance it could be completely removed from government.

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Early results left investors ‘swinging between anxiety’

Bloomberg is reporting that early results from South Africa, where the ANC looks set to fail at winning the majority vote, has left “investors swinging between anxiety over the different permutations that coalition may take”.

It reported that ahead of the vote, it seemed that the governing party would be much closer to the 50-percent mark that would have enabled it to join hands with a small party.

However, after half of the votes counted, ANC’s tally is hovering around the 42-percent mark.

“We remain in something of a no-man’s-land at present, with the still-sizable uncertainty over the ANC’s final tally keeping most options for the next government on the table,” Ivailo Vesselinov, chief strategist at Emso Asset Management, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.

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South Africa election results page back on

The IEC says its website showing results from this week’s elections in South Africa has resumed updating after an apparent glitch.

However, it still seems to be missing data from areas where it had previously announced votes had been counted in.

We will bring you all the latest on this as well as the results as soon as we can.

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When will we find out the results?

As we’ve been reporting, more than 50 percent of the votes have been counted and announced.The Election Commission has seven days from the date of the elections to announce results.

Ahead of the polls, the IEC said it will announce final results on Sunday, June 2.

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Urban vote count may help ANC, but likely won’t be enough

Results from urban areas – traditional bastions of ANC support – could still improve the party’s prospects, but it seems all but certain that it will fall below a 50 percent outright majority.

“Big cities are the ANC’s domain historically, they’ve always done very well in the major urban centres. But what we’ve seen in the rural areas is definitely a bleeding of support. If that is repeated in the urban areas, the ANC is going to do even worse than we predict at the moment,” Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna said, reporting from the election result centre in Midrand.

“But it is a very tricky situation, because you do have a somewhat regional bias to things as well,” he added, noting that the MK has benefitted from strong results in KwaZulu-Natal, a historic hub of ANC support but also the home province of MK leader Jacob Zuma.

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Glitch in Election Commission website

South Africa’s Election Commission has just announced it is facing issues with its website displaying election results.

In a post on X, the IEC said they are working on restoring the service.

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What if no party wins a majority?

Partial results suggest the governing ANC will likely lose its majority.

If this happens, the ANC will need to try to make a deal with other parties to form a coalition government. The choice of coalition partners depends on their d

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istance from the 50 percent mark.

If the ANC performs much worse than expected, there is a slim chance it could be completely removed from government.

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South Africa Elections Results 2024 (05:13am | 31/05/2024)

Here’s what happened yesterday

The first day of vote counting got under way in South Africa on Thursday after the country went to the polls a day earlier in a crucial vote for the governing ANC.

• Polls officially closed at 9pm (19:00 GMT) on Wednesday, but long voter queues and delays kept many polling stations open until about 3am (01:00 GMT) on Thursday.
• Vote counting began shortly after polls closed and continued throughout the day.
• By 4pm (14:00 GMT), results were concluded for 22.6 percent of all voting districts, the country’s Electoral Commission said.
• Just before 11pm (21:00 GMT), more than 40 percent of the vote was tallied. Counting will continue into Friday.
• Jacob Zuma’s MK party gained ground in KwaZulu-Natal, and the main opposition DA took an early lead in the Western Cape. Meanwhile, the ANC struggled more than it did in previous elections.
• Analysts say it is unlikely the ANC will get a 50 percent majority, which means the party will have to seek coalition partners to govern.
• Final results are expected to be announced by Sunday.

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South Africa Elections Results 2024 (10:59 pm)

40 percent of the vote counted

At just after 10:30pm local time (20:30 GMT), 40 percent of the vote was counted, according to the country’s Electoral Commission.

The ANC was in the lead nationally with 42.6 percent, but early results and projections suggested it would likely lose its outright majority.

In second place was the DA with 23.8 percent, followed by the MK with 9.8 percent, and the EFF with 9.4 percent.

The ANC had so far won the most votes in all provinces besides the Western Cape – where the DA was in the lead – and KwaZulu-Natal, where the MK was making gains.

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Urban vote count may help ANC, but likely won’t be enough

Results from urban areas – traditional bastions of ANC support – could still improve the party’s prospects, but it seems all but certain that it will fall below a 50 percent outright majority.

“Big cities are the ANC’s domain historically, they’ve always done very well in the major urban centres. But what we’ve seen in the rural areas is definitely a bleeding of support. If that is repeated in the urban areas, the ANC is going to do even worse than we predict at the moment,” Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna said, reporting from the election result centre in Midrand.

“But it is a very tricky situation, because you do have a somewhat regional bias to things as well,” he added, noting that the MK has benefitted from strong results in KwaZulu-Natal, a historic hub of ANC support but also the home province of MK leader Jacob Zuma.

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Voter turnout currently trending lower than 2019

While data on voter participation could still change as more information from urban areas comes in, South Africa’s electoral commission said late on Thursday that, so far, voter turnout is at about 58.7 percent, news outlet the Daily Maverick reported.

That is lower than the 66 percent figures from 2019 – which undermines earlier predictions from the commission that said turnout would likely exceed the previous election.

“Analysts have told Daily Maverick that the long voting queues seen countrywide on Wednesday are not necessarily an indication of high voter turnout, but may be an indication of what’s happening inside voting stations. If you take into account the reports of delayed ballots, tech glitches and three ballot papers, it’s not rational to assume the long queues were the result solely of a high voter turnout,” the outlet said.

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Former ANC activist: Election results will be ‘sobering’ for ruling party

Former ANC activist Lawson Naidoo said the vote results will be seen as a “sobering” moment for the governing party, which has become accustomed to comfortable margins of victory in past decades.

“Current predictions show the ANC likely to come in between 40 and 45 percent of the vote, which would be a significant reduction in their support, having obtained 57 percent in the previous election,” he told Al Jazeera. “So it’s a sobering election for the African National Congress.

“It seems that the primary beneficiary of the ANC’s drop in support has been Jacob Zuma’s new MK party. The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, seems to be staying relatively stable in the low 20 percents.”

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Results thus far ‘very encouraging’: Opposition

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from the election results centre, says that while progress on the vote count is “like watching paint dry”, the results could add up to a seismic shift in the country’s political landscape.

“Certainly, it’s a political future that could be very, very different from the decades of the past,” said Hanna.

“We are very satisfied with the picture that is starting to emerge with the results that are out now. It’s very encouraging for our prospects in this election,” Solly Malatsi, a spokesperson for the Multi-Party Charter (MPC) opposition coalition told Hanna.

“The truth of the matter right now is that the future of governance in South Africa is coalitions,” he added.

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IEC asks for help locating missing ballot box

South Africa’s Electoral Commission (IEC) has asked for help locating a missing ballot box in the KwaZulu-Natal province.

“The Electoral Commission appeals to citizens in and around Ward 14 uMhlathuze, in KwaZulu-Natal, to be on the lookout for an IEC branded ballot box that went missing in transit from the voting station … to the municipal electoral office for storage,” the body said on X, stating that the ballots in the box had already been “counted, reconciled and validated”.

“The IEC appeals to anyone who finds the ballot box to return it to us. Citizens are reminded that anyone found to be in possession of ballots is liable to criminal prosecution,” the post added.

The Electoral Commission appeals to citizens in and around Ward 14 uMhlathuze, in KwaZulu-Natal, to be on the lookout for an IEC branded ballot box that went missing in transit from the voting station Matamzana Dube School in VD 43412767, KZN282, uMhlathuze, to the municipal… pic.twitter.com/lTA8FXpDaB

— IEC South Africa (@IECSouthAfrica) May 30, 2024

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Many South Africans feel let down by ANC: Analyst

Zakhele Ndlovu, a political analyst, tells Al Jazeera that some South Africans hope a change in the political landscape will help address problems like poverty and job opportunities after years of dominance by the ANC.

He says many Zulus – the country’s largest ethnic group, to which Jacob Zuma belongs – are also enthused about the candidacy of the former president.

“A lot of people who are either disgruntled or fed up with the ANC feel that the ANC has let them down,” he said.

“So they see this new political party [MK] as the alternative. And then you have a lot of Zulu speakers, Zulu people who support him [Zuma] just because in him they see themselves.”

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ANC faces uncertain coalition possibilities if it falls short of a majority

If the ANC fails to secure a majority of the votes, it will be faced with the task of forging a governing coalition with other parties such as DA or EFF, with whom it may have unbridgeable differences on various policy issues. MK has already stated that it will not form a coalition with the ANC.

“The other option is for the ANC to cobble together a whole lot of the smaller parties who may demand less to become part of the coalition,” Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna reported from the election result centre in Johannesburg.

“The problem with that, in terms of the arithmetic, is that the ANC would have to get at least 46 percent or more of the votes to form a coalition with a number of parties.

“But as the results are coming in, that appears to be a target that may be very hard for the organisation to reach.”

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MK becoming ‘permanent fixture’ in national politics: Party member

While the final results will take time to become clear, there are indications that the ANC is “declining quite sharply” and is on track to finish with about 43 percent of the vote as parties like the MK make strong gains, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna says, reporting from Johannesburg.

Hanna spoke to Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, an MK member and former President Jacob Zuma’s daughter.

“I think [the MK is becoming] a permanent fixture in South African politics. It’s one that’s needed and one that’s obviously wanted as we can see by the numbers,” she said, reiterating that there would be no coalition talks with the ANC.

“It’s what democracy is: People have the right to choose who they want to choose, and the bulk of our voters this year were young people,” she added.

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‘The race is not over’: ANC deputy secretary-general

ANC Deputy Secretary-General Nomvula Mokonyane has said that early voting results have been a surprise for the governing party, but that the results could still change as more votes are tallied.

“It is still early, the race is not yet over,” she said, noting that vote tallies from the KwaZulu-Natal province have been a “surprise”.

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Some young voters hope MK will boost their economic prospects

While the ANC has been a dominant force in South African politics since the end of the apartheid regime it led the fight to dismantle, some young people are disillusioned with the party and hope others can offer better economic opportunities.

“I’m sure the [MK] party will give us great job opportunities, especially us youngsters,” voter Pindile Mkhize told Al Jazeera.

“I finished school in 2010 and I still don’t have a job. The other party is promising us the jobs, but still nothing. I think the MK is going to give us a change.”

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ANC projected to lose Gauteng: Local media

The ANC is likely to lose Gauteng, the most populous province, according to projections from News24.

The outlet, using a forecasting tool it developed during the last elections, projected that the ANC would get 35 percent of the vote in Gauteng, the economic heart of South Africa, which is home to Johannesburg and Pretoria.

The party narrowly held on to the province in the 2019 elections with 50.1 percent of the vote.

News24 said the ANC and EFF are already working together in key metro areas and, if the ruling party loses Gauteng, that working arrangement may be extended. However, it added that the two parties would still need other smaller parties to surpass 50 percent.

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South Africa Elections Results 2024 (07:48 pm)

MK party moves into third position

With more than 32 percent of the vote counted, Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party has moved into third place, beating out the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which now sits in fourth place.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) shows MK with 9.17 percent, while the EFF now has 9.03 percent, giving MK a small lead for third place that could change as more votes come in.

ANC remains in first place with 42.1 percent, and DA is in second with 24.8.

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Who is John Steenhuisen?

John Steenhuisen, the leader of the DA, has promised that his party will “rescue South Africa” from what he characterises as decades of ANC misrule.

Steenhuisen is one of the architects of the Multi-Party Charter, a coalition of 11 parties seeking to end the ANC’s majority.

But the DA has been bashed by critics as a party of the middle class with little understanding of the problems faced by the country’s poor.

The party’s leaders are also largely white, contributing to perceptions that the DA is a party for those with relative advantage. Steenhuisen has downplayed those concerns by stating that South Africans are eager for competence above all else.

South Africa Elections Results 2024 (06:51 pm)

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Do we know what day and time the election results will be released?

By law, the Electoral Commission has seven days to declare full results, but in practice, it is usually faster than that.

In the last election in 2019, voting took place on a Wednesday, like this year, and final results were announced on Saturday.

However, this year, experts said it may take a bit longer because of voting delays and because there were three ballots instead of two.

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Early results show poor trend for ANC

Early voting results point to potentially troubling trends for the African National Congress (ANC), but that could change as more ballots are counted from urban areas of the country throughout the day.

“At the moment we’ve got just over 20 percent of the vote counted, and at this stage the ANC has around 43 percent of the vote,” Al Jazeera correspondent Mike Hanna reported from a results operation centre in Midrand, South Africa, adding that this result is lower than the ANC might have expected.

“But a couple of caveats. We’re looking at a rural picture at the moment. We haven’t had many of the urban areas coming through, and we’re waiting through the day, and possibly tomorrow, for all the votes to come in to get a clearer picture.”

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Photos: Votes are counted in South Africa elections

South African voters queued – many of them for hours – to cast their ballots on Wednesday in a landmark general election that has left the governing ANC fighting to protect its three-decade-long exclusive grip on power.

More than a quarter of the votes are now counted, according to the Electoral commission.

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What does Zuma want?

Political analyst William Gumede, speaking about Zuma and the ANC, told Al Jazeera what he believes the former president who now heads the MK may want out of this election.

“I think what Zuma wants is two things. He’s not interested in being anywhere close to government. What he wants is a presidential pardon, so he is going to look for a coalition with a governing party at the national level that can give him a presidential pardon. He has got multiple corruption, racketeering charges, and has been trying for years to get out of it.

“He has run out of legal runway, has to face corruption charges, and is very likely to go to jail in his old age. What he wants to do is prevent that from happening. And the only way to prevent that from happening is to get a presidential pardon. So everything he does is based on that. He wants to get the high numbers [for the MK party] so he can get into a national coalition, where whoever is elected president gives him that pardon.”

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MK won’t form coalition with ANC, Zuma’s daughter says

Jacob Zuma’s MK party will not form a coalition with the ANC, the former president’s daughter says, according to South Africa’s News24.

Speaking to journalists at the Electoral Commission’s results centre, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla said her father indicated he was open to working with “progressive Black parties”, the outlet reported.

Zuma and his party have been gaining ground in KwaZulu-Natal, which could make the former ANC member a kingmaker in the formation of a new government.

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Results being validated

Mamabolo, the CEO of the Electoral Commission, has shared an update about the votes that have been captured in each of the nine provinces.

By 4pm (14:00 GMT), results were concluded for 22.6 percent of all voting districts.

A result is considered complete only when a result slip has been scanned, captured onto the results system, audited by independent auditors and goes through the automated results system exception parameters, he said.

The rate of result capture is as follows:

• Northern Cape – 63 percent
• Eastern Cape – 58 percent
• Western Cape – 57 percent
• Free State – 56 percent
• Mpumalanga – 42 percent
• North West – 36 percent
• Gauteng – 28 percent
• Limpopo – 26 percent
• KwaZulu-Natal – 23 percent

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Vote counting ‘slowed down’ this election: Electoral officer

Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo said at a news briefing that the commission has seven days to announce the results.

“Historically, in the first 24 hours, 80 percent of the results would have been finalised. However, the process in the 2024 elections has been slowed down by the third ballot, particularly in metropolitan areas,” he said.

“According to the Electoral Act, the commission has seven days within which to announce the results. We have always been able to declare and announce the results well within this period and will endeavour to do so even in this occasion.”

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MK could ‘decimate’ ANC in KwaZulu-Natal: Analyst

William Gumede, a political analyst and the founder of the organisation, the Democracy Works Foundation, spoke to Al Jazeera about the threat Zuma’s MK poses for the ANC.

“Zuma will be kingmaker potentially if the ANC reaches the 40 percent floor [nationally], but his strength is also KwaZulu-Natal, so he would be able to put a government together there with the EFF and could prevent the ANC from forming a government in KwaZulu-Natal.

“I think we can already say now that the ANC has lost KwaZulu-Natal … It seems like Zuma has already taken the vote from the ANC in the rural areas [in KZN] and that’s very dangerous for the ANC because they are already weak in the urban areas. So the ANC, it appears, is going to be decimated in KZN.”

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How has Jacob Zuma’s MK party performed so far?

Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa reporting from Umlazi, South Africa

They have performed quite remarkably in his home province [KwaZulu-Natal]. His party was formed just last year and they managed to make major inroads in this province.

They’ve taken some areas away from the ANC. This is traditionally an ANC stronghold, so it’s quite a shake-up.

When you speak to his supporters, they say they’re supporting him because when he was president of South Africa, they feel he did develop this part of the country. They say he created jobs, he improved infrastructure, he made healthcare better for the poor; that’s why they support him.

That’s why some feel he is being unfairly persecuted by Ramaphosa’s ANC; they feel he is being victimised.

It’s remarkable – this party is only a year old and it’s managed to make inroads in this province. But people wait to see how it also does nationally.

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South Africa’s DA seeks to prevent ANC alliance with two smaller parties

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will do its utmost to prevent a coalition between the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) or uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) parties, DA figure Helen Zille tells Reuters.

“We will do everything in our power to prevent an ANC, MK and EFF coalition. That would spook investors. It would tank the economy. It would be a disaster for South Africa. So we are very committed to prevent that outcome,” said Zille, a former DA leader who is chairperson of the party’s Federal Council.

Partial results showed the ANC on course to lose its parliamentary majority. The DA was expected to come second, the EFF third and MK fourth.

“We are not in negotiations with anybody,” Zille said.

Asked about what coalition options her party might pursue, she said: “My expectations are that my party will take the least bad option.”

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South Africa Elections Results 2024 (04:37 pm)

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Who is leading in South Africa’s 2024 elections?

With just more than 21 percent of the vote counted, the ANC is in the lead with 43 percent, followed by the DA with 24 percent.

The EFF follows with 8.9 percent, but the newly formed MK is hot on its heels with 8.1 percent.

Despite the ANC’s lead, many analysts and polls project it will not gain a 50 percent majority for the first time.

The ANC is currently leading in all provinces besides the Western Cape where the DA is in the lead, and KwaZulu-Natal where the MK is gaining support.

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‘ANC’s arrogance cost them votes’ in KZN as MK leads in polls: Report

Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) continues to lead in the polls in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province, with the party currently garnering 41.77 percent of the vote, with the ANC at 21.06 percent, and the Inkatha Freedom (IFP) at 17.08 percent, South Africa’s IOL news reported.

Political commentator Thobani Zikalala told IOL the ANC’s arrogance cost them in the elections. If current polls are an indication, the MK will take the majority of the votes in KZN, he said.

“The ANC should have fixed its house. The voters are clearly saying that they want something different and something better. The MK party represents a break in the status quo,” he said.

Zikalala added that historically, Zuma has been touting radical economic transformation and the ANC discounted the “Zuma factor” in KZN.

“It is about the politics of personalities. People will follow personalities, and Zuma exemplified this, as it shows that no matter where the person goes, the people will vote for them,” he told IOL.

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Who is Cyril Ramaphosa?

Ramaphosa, the current president and head of the governing ANC, is a 71-year-old from Soweto who was part of the Nelson Mandela-led ANC class that wrested South Africa from the apartheid government in 1994.

Before becoming president, Ramaphosa was a successful businessman in sectors ranging from mining to food.

He is considered a more level-headed leader than his immediate predecessor, Jacob Zuma. However Ramaphosa has also suffered his share of image-denting scandals in office, most notably the 2022 Phala Phala debacle when he was accused of hiding millions of dollars in laundered cash in his farmhouse.

If the ANC fails to win at least 50 percent of the national vote, it may be forced into a coalition with smaller opposition parties for the first time in history. Still, Ramaphosa, who has retained a steady support base, is the favourite for president, according to ANC internal polls.

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‘Unbelievable’ that most in Eastern Cape still support ANC: ActionSA candidate

ActionSA’s Eastern Cape candidate for premier, Athol Trollip, has told South Africa’s News24 outlet it is “unbelievable” that most people in the province continue to support the ANC despite “glaring service delivery failures”.

“It’s inexplicable to me,” he said. “I’ve been campaigning for a long time in this province where people are impoverished. We have the highest unemployment rate and poor service delivery levels. Our rural hinterland is completely impoverished, yet the people of this province still vote ANC.”

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If formation of coalition is protracted, political gridlock may follow

If the final results confirm the loss of its majority, the ANC will be forced to make a deal with one or more other parties to govern – a situation that could lead to unprecedented political volatility in the coming weeks or months, according to an analyst.

“There will be checks and balances on the ANC power, but the ultimate risk is that the infighting could make governance ineffective,” Simon Harvey, head of foreign exchange analysis at Monex Europe, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

Under South Africa’s constitution, the National Assembly will elect the next president. With the ANC still on course to be the largest party, that is likely to be its leader Ramaphosa, the incumbent.

However, a poor showing could make him vulnerable to a leadership challenge from within party ranks, whether in the immediate future or at some point during his term.

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Some could not vote due to registration discrepancies: FF+

The Freedom Front Plus (FF+) party says some South Africans weren’t able to vote on Wednesday due to alleged registration discrepancies.

“We have many, many instances of the electorate just not being able to vote,” Wouter Wessels of the FF+ told SABC.

“They were correctly registered, they have proof, they checked their registration status over the registration weekend and all of a sudden, they are registered in a place where they have never lived, never registered at and that’s very, very strange. Then the system is saying a person is only eligible to vote in one place.

“Those people were turned away, they couldn’t vote.”

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What are the main issues among South Africans?

Jobs – The jobless rate stood at 32.4 percent in 2023, nearly 10 points higher than in 1994 when the ANC came to power. Young people account for more than half of the country’s unemployed with a rate of more than 40 percent.

Economy – The root cause of the joblessness crisis is sluggish economic growth. South Africa’s economy has barely grown in more than a decade with economic growth averaging 0.8 percent since 2012.

Power cuts – Known to South Africans as “load-shedding”, scheduled power cuts imposed by the state utility Eskom because of an inability to generate enough electricity to meet demand are the bane of households as well as companies.

Corruption – A long series of corruption scandals involving ANC figures or people connected to them has created a perception among many South Africans that the greed of people in office is contributing to poor service delivery for everyone else.

Crime – South Africa has one of the world’s highest rates of violent crime. The problem is worse in the densely populated townships on the peripheries of cities, where many Black working class people live.

Immigration – The most recent census in 2022 found that 2.4 million of South Africa’s population of 62 million people were immigrants, compared with 835,000 in 1996, the year the post-apartheid constitution was promulgated.

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What are possible coalition options for the ANC?

William Gumede, the founder of democracy capacity building organisation, the Democracy Works Foundation, add that if ANC “gets in the lower 40 percent, it will have to think of a coalition either with the EFF and the MK”.

“It will almost be like an old ANC, because the EFF and MK leaders were former ANC members. That type of coalition can be very tough for the ANC because MK and Jacob Zuma demand two things: Ramaphosa must go as president for him to be part of a coalition and for Zuma to get a presidential pardon so that all of his corruption cases are taken away. The EFF wants the deputy presidency and the finance ministry. So these are very tough and humiliating conditions for the ANC.

“The second one they could consider is to go into a coalition with the MPC, with the Multi-Party Charter that includes the DA, IFP, FF Plus, that’s almost a grand coalition or like a government of national unity. So that’s what the ANC will have to think of. But if the ANC falls below 40 percent, the MPC members could consider a coalition with other parties.”

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South Africa Elections Results 2024 (01:46 pm)

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Late voting likely to cause counting delays: Western Cape official

Western Cape electoral officer Michael Hendrickse says the electoral commission will be looking into why some polling stations experienced major delays in voting, the News24 media outlet has reported.

He said the last voting station in Parklands, Cape Town closed at about 1am (23:00 GMT). Some of the delays were due to voter management devices, personnel and training, he added.

Hendrickse added that counting is well under way in the Western Cape province. By 10am (08:00 GMT), 23.66 percent of Western Cape votes had been counted.

He said the late voting will likely delay ballot counting and metro areas with larger populations will take longer to tally.

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Election to be contested in urban areas

Tessa Dooms, director of the Rivonia Circle think tank in Johannesburg, said the early results were skewed towards rural areas where she would have expected the ANC to be performing better than it was.

“The rural vote comes in early and it’s always much smaller. The urban vote comes in quite late. I think this election will be a lot more contested in the urban areas,” she told Reuters at the results centre in Midrand, north of Johannesburg.

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What if no party wins a majority?

Here’s a possible question after yesterday’s polls: What if no party wins a majority?

Opinion polls suggest the governing ANC will likely lose its majority.

If this happens, the ANC will need to try to make a deal with other parties to form a coalition government. The choice of coalition partners depends on their distance from the 50 percent mark.

If the ANC performs much worse than expected, there is a slim chance it could be completely removed from government.

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This may be a bloodbath for the ANC

William Gumede, the founder of democracy capacity building organisation, the Democracy Works Foundation says that “a lower turnout was expected and that would’ve suited the ANC”.

“Many voters in rural areas come out, but many city voters don’t. This time, we saw higher urban voter turnout, which means that the ANC will be lower than the 50 percent and it may be closer to 40 percent.

“The ANC has become an increasingly rural party, it has been losing the urban areas. I think once the urban area vote comes out in terms of counting, this may be a bloodbath for the ANC.”

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The forecasting tool, built by Media24 developers, is based on series of mathematical models developed by elections specialist Dawie Scholtz and was first used by News24 during the 2019 general election.

Courtesy: News24

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How relevant is the ANC among the youth?

Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa reporting from Durban, South Africa

When you speak to the older voters, they will tell you they remember before apartheid ended in 1994, Black South Africans didn’t have many rights in this country. They see the ANC as a party that brought it liberation; now people have rights, the fact that they can come and vote is a big achievement.

But they do acknowledge there are a lot of things that have gone wrong in this country.

The younger people, some of them say they learn from their parents about the ANC’s history and how important it is that they fought for this country’s liberation. But some are saying our issues now are different – we don’t have jobs, we don’t have access to basic services; they want things to change.

The key thing, of course, is the ANC’s relevance or dominance in today’s society for young South African voters and we saw some of them waiting in long lines, at least in this part of Durban, yesterday.

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‘Not clear’ on what a potential coalition government will look like

Pauline Bax, the deputy director at the International Crisis Group, said there is a feeling that this election is, to “some extent”, a referendum on the ANC.

“In previous elections, people could vote and express their support for the ANC, but the outcome was more or less guaranteed. The ANC would win a majority of votes, and now its not clear and it’s also not clear what a coalition government would look like,” Bax told Al Jazeera.

She added that the ANC has yet to say which parties it would join in a coalition government and is still maintaining that it will win the election.

“We don’t really know what the outcome is going to be, so we don’t know what coalition partners are most likely … so it’s really quite up in air at the moment, which also makes it really quite exciting,” she said.

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Projection: National-to-national ballot puts ANC at 42.3%, a massive drop from 2019

News24’s election model reveals that the ANC has lost 15,2 percentage points from the 57,5% it secured in 2019.

The model, which calculates party support based purely on the national ballot and is exclusive of the regional ballot, puts the ANC at a projected number of 42,3%.

Former president Jacob Zuma’s MK Party looks set to replace the EFF as the country’s third largest party.

The regional ballot, which was the third ballot voters used, is also a national ballot and includes independent candidates. This ballot will be added to the national ballot.

News24’s modeling will later on Thursday confirm the combined national and regional ballot to reveal the final, national projection.

News24’s projection for national ballot is:

ANC: 42,3% (-15,2)

DA: 21,8% (1)

MK: 13,6% (-)

EFF: 9% (-1,8)

IFP: 3,5% (-)

PA: 2,2% (1)

FF+: 1,5% (-0,9)

ActionSA: 1% (-)

Rise Mzanzi: 0,4% (-)

BOSA: 0,3% (-)

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(12:14 pm)

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What kind of a coalition could the ANC form?

Political analyst Angelo Fick shares some thoughts with Al Jazeera as to possible outcomes for the formation of a new government.

“If the ANC score up where they are currently at 42 percent, they may need one very large party to push them over 50 percent and they may be working with the EFF or they may work with a coalition of smaller parties which I think will be more complicated to manage,” he said.

“If they score in the higher 40s, if they come in at just 47, 48 percent, they may only need two or three smaller parties that are breakaways from their own original stable, to get them over that and that might be helpful for them.

“If they’re scoring below 40 – which is really unanticipated – then the dynamic is widely open and we may seen them combine in ways that nobody would’ve foreseen and that they’ve all denied they would, and that might be the two biggest parties.

“Politics is a very strange business and we’ve seen coalitions happen between people before, particularly in South Africa, that you wouldn’t have thought would go together.”

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Current national assembly

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South Africa’s rand drops

Bloomberg is reporting that South Africa’s rand fell on Thursday morning as initial forecasts for the general election showed a marked decline in support for the ruling ANC.

The currency dropped as much as 1.1 percent against the dollar to trade at 18.5955 per dollar as of 8:50am (06:50 GMT).

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The youth ‘don’t feel loyalties to the ANC’

When asked about young voters who feel disillusioned with the ANC due to the country’s poor economic prospects, corruption and crime, Yunus Carrim, member of parliament for the ANC since 1994 and leader of the South African Communist Party, says the younger generation “understandably didn’t go through the struggle era, so they don’t feel the loyalties to the ANC that all the people do”.

“You must look at the 30 years as a whole, not just the last five years or 10 years. As a whole, we’ve done remarkably well compared to what apartheid was,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We have had over 5m rands ($267,823) allocated to university and college. We have taken five million people overall through the system.

“They haven’t been through what apartheid was, and they’re angry at us. But it’s good that 18 to 42-year-olds was the largest component of the new registration and the ANC has to take that into account. We cannot reside solely on the memories of the older generation who were engaged in the struggle era before 1994.”

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‘Big shock’ to ANC if they get below 50 percent of vote

Melanie Verwoerd, a political analyst and former ANC MP, says that while South Africans “definitely” want change in terms of governance, this does not necessarily mean they will not vote for the governing party.

“The question is, though, how badly will the ANC do, and at this stage it looks like they could possibly still make the 45 percent mark and up. It’s important to note they will still be by far the majority party in the country,” Verwoerd told Al Jazeera.

“The Democratic Alliance is the major opposition party. They’re not expected to get much more than the low or mid-20s.

“The Economic Freedom Fighters, under Julius Malema, [is] somewhere along the 10,11,12 percent. So the ANC will stay a dominant power in the political domain, but it will be a big shock for them when they fall under 50 percent for the first time since democracy.”

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Concerns within the ANC over losing majority

Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller reporting from Midrand, South Africa

The turnout has always been under the watch as it may indicate the outcome of this election. Many polling stations had to remain open after the allotted time because there were voters in the queue.

Analysts are saying a high turnout could possibly be bad news for the ANC and we could possibly see those people having voted for the opposition.

It’s still early days and we’re likely to get the final results by Sunday but until then, the biggest question will be around the ANC hanging on to its majority. There are concerns from within the party that it might not be the case.

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Voter turnout ‘well beyond’ last election

Sy Mamabolo, CEO of the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), said yesterday that the body was pleased with the high voter turnout on Wednesday.

When asked about specific numbers during a media briefing, he said: “It’s difficult to call until you complete the counting process but it’s safe to say it will be well beyond the 66 percent [turnout] we had in 2019.”

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Why is this a historic election?

It’s been almost procedural over the last three decades for the ANC to use its parliamentary majority to elect its leader as president of the country. This year may not be so simple.

Several polls placed the ANC’s support at less than 50 percent ahead of the election, raising the possibility that it might not have a majority.

It is still widely expected to be the biggest party, but if it goes below 50 percent it would then need an agreement or coalition with another party or parties to stay in government and get the 201 votes it needs from lawmakers to re-elect President Ramaphosa for a second and final five-year term.

The new parliament must meet for its first session within 14 days of the election results being announced to choose the president. Should the ANC lose its majority, there would likely be a feverish period of bargaining between it and other parties to form some sort of coalition before parliament sits.

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What’s happening with the vote count?

Ballot counting was under way on Thursday after South Africans queued long into the night to vote in a watershed election.

Counting began in each voting station shortly after polls closed, in some cities long after the planned 9pm (19:00 GMT) Wednesday shutdown, with long queues of voters snaking into the night.

The final result is not expected to be known before the weekend, but observers will scour turnout figures and partial results to predict whether the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party has finally lost its overall parliamentary majority.

If President Cyril Ramaphosa’s party drops below 50 percent for the first time since it came to power in 1994, it will force him to seek coalition partners if he is to be re-elected by parliament to form a new government.

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said a last-minute rush in urban voting and high turnout were to blame for Wednesday’s late finish, but many voters complained at polling stations that the three-ballot system was too complex.

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Who are the key people in this election?

Cyril Ramaphosa

South Africa’s current president and head of the African National Congress (ANC).

Ramaphosa, 71, is looking to secure his second and final election win, but many have predicted his party might not be able to secure an outright majority and will be forced to form a coalition government.

John Steenhuisen

Steenhuisen, 48, leader of the official opposition  Democratic Alliance (DA), is situating his party as the party to “rescue South Africa” from the ANC.

Jacob Zuma

Although former President Zuma, 82, was barred from standing as a member of parliament, he is the face of the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party, which is expected to gain seats from the ANC.

Julius Malema

Malema, 43, is the founder of the Economic Freedom Party (EFF), an anti-establishment, Marxist, Pan-Africanist party.

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As polls close, many still wait for their chance to vote

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna reporting from Midrand, South Africa

The polls closed … but it has been announced that anybody who’s in a queue at the time that the polls close will be able to vote. It’s going to be a long long time before everyone gets to vote.

A first-time voter in the queue told Al Jazeera they were “very excited” to vote.

Another person also said they were “excited to see a lot of people come out”.

“It’s about time that we have change in this country and I’m really proud that people came out to come and vote, to come and make a change. We are tired, we need change,” she told Al Jazeera.

Photos: Long queues as millions vote

Polls closed

It’s 9pm in South Africa, 19:00 GMT, and polls are now closed.

“All voters who are in queues will be assisted to vote,” the Electoral Commission’s deputy CEO Masego Sheburi said earlier in the day, assuring voters that they would not be turned away if they were in line by 9pm.

Vote counting will begin immediately, with final results to be announced this weekend.

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Voters discuss the ‘Jacob Zuma’ effect

Hundreds queue at voting stations in KwaZulu-Natal

SA police say ‘no incidents’ reported at voting stations in eThekwini district

‘Not clear’ on what a potential coalition government will look like

How relevant is the ANC among the youth?

Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa reporting from Durban, South Africa

When you speak to the older voters, they will tell you they remember before apartheid ended in 1994, Black South Africans didn’t have many rights in this country. They see the ANC as a party that brought it liberation; now people have rights, the fact that they can come and vote is a big achievement.

But they do acknowledge there are a lot of things that have gone wrong in this country.

The younger people, some of them say they learn from their parents about the ANC’s history and how important it is that they fought for this country’s liberation. But some are saying our issues now are different – we don’t have jobs, we don’t have access to basic services; they want things to change.

The key thing, of course, is the ANC’s relevance or dominance in today’s society for young South African voters and we’re seeing some of them waiting in long lines, at least in this part of Durban.

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Photos: South Africans take to the polls

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Youth must ‘exercise their right to vote’

Balinde Njolo, who voted at Durban’s City Hall in KwaZulu-Natal, told Al Jazeera how she feels about this election:

“My expectation more than anything is that the youth come out and exercise their right to vote, so that we can be able to choose the people we feel can be great leaders for our country. I’m hoping that moving forward after these elections, we’ll see the results we are hoping for.”

On the key election issues, she flagged jobs and education: “First thing would be unemployment, the fact that we have people who went to school and got their qualifications, but they are not able to get their jobs. [Second], the issue of funding in higher institutions because we know that we have people who went to school, but they can’t get their qualifications because they do not have funds.

“So, those are the two main concerns that we should be focusing on fixing as the country.”

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Death penalty needed to address plethora of murder cases: Cape Town voter

Many South Africans have expressed concerns regarding crime in the country.

In Kewtown, Athlone, a working-class suburb of Cape Town, Edwina Smith, 34, who is unemployed, told Reuters: “The government must bring back the death penalty because there are too many cases of murder and the people committing these crimes get away with it. Crime is a very big problem.”

Lamlani Lokoto, 39, in Langa, the oldest Black township in Cape Town, said: “There is a lot of crime in our Kasi [township], and we need more police patrols.” He added that the governing party had not done enough for the country.

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Big crowds a feature as South Africans line up to vote

The start of the highly anticipated election day has been characterised by long queues snaking around suburban blocks, as South Africans lined up to vote.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) expects the turnout in these elections to top the 66% of the 2019 elections. 

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We casted the decisive vote in Moses Kotane Primary School, Ward 44 in Braamfischerville, the City of Johannesburg. The @EFFSouthAfrica will be number 1 in Ward 44 in our collective journey to total victory! It’s No surrender! No retreat! Victory is Certain! #VoteEFF! pic.twitter.com/Nig2gnu54h

— Floyd Shivambu (@FloydShivambu) May 29, 2024

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Five Eastern Cape voting stations closed due to service delivery protests, says IEC

Electricity outages, protests and lack of water were some of the issues that delayed and, in some cases, prevented some voters from casting their votes at voting stations in the Eastern Cape on Wednesday.

By lunchtime on Wednesday, the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) Eastern Cape electoral officer, Kayakazi Magudumana, said five voting stations remained closed due to residents protesting over service delivery issues.

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‘Smooth start’ to voting, electoral commission says

IEC Deputy Chief electoral officer, Masego Sheburi, discusses voter turnout on the day of elections.