Ruling ANC wins South Africa polls

South Africa’s election commission completed a vote count that confirms the ruling African National Congress as the winner, but also shows the strengthening of prominent opposition groups, according to results yesterday.

The government said the election and its aftermath had gone smoothly, despite some scattered delays and disruptions, and an outbreak of street violence in a poor area of Johannesburg.

With all 22,000 voting districts counted, the African National Congress had 62.15% of the vote, several percentage points lower than its result in 2009 elections, the election commission said on its website.

The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, won 22.23% of the vote, an increase of more than 5% from 2009. The Economic Freedom Fighters, a new party that wants to distribute national resources to the poor, won 6.35%.

Under South Africa’s system of proportional representation, the ruling party enters the parliament with 249 of 400 seats, the Democratic Alliance has 89 seats, and the Economic Freedom Fighters is third with 25 seats. Smaller parties share the rest of the seats.

Voter turnout was 73% of the 25m South Africans, or half the population registered for the national and provincial elections.

In a key race, the ruling party won Gauteng, South Africa’s most populous province and its economic centre, by about 53%, but that was a drop of 10% from its performance in 2009. The Democratic Alliance came second in Gauteng, which includes Johannesburg, with nearly 31% and the Economic Freedom Fighters won 10%.

Once led by Nelson Mandela, the ANC campaigned on a record of promoting democratic freedoms and providing basic services to millions of South Africans since the end of white minority rule in 1994.

Its reputation has been tarnished by the 2012 killing of several dozen protesters by police during labour unrest and a scandal involving over 207m rand (€14.5m) in state spending on the private home of President Jacob Zuma.