ANC party that freed South Africa from apartheid loses 30-year majority

Observers look on as election results are displayed in Midrand, Johannesburg (Themba Hadebe/AP)

The African National Congress party has lost its parliamentary majority in an historic election result that puts South Africa on a new political path for the first time since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule 30 years ago.

With nearly 99% of votes counted, the once-dominant ANC had received just over 40% in the election on Wednesday, well short of the majority it had held since the famed all-race vote of 1994 that ended apartheid and brought it to power under Nelson Mandela.