Johannesburg – Election results streamed in steadily across the country overnight and early on Thursday morning, but the two major cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town lagged behind.

Nationally, a total of over 5.4 million votes had been counted by 09:00.

The Western Cape was in a better position than Gauteng, where the metropole had reported a little vote counting by dawn and the City of Johannesburg still had to submit data.

Of the 2.9m registered voters in the Western Cape, just over 1.1m votes had been counted on the national ballot and 1.1m on the provincial ballot by 08:00.

In Gauteng, with over six million registered voters, 297 950 national ballots and 284 898 provincial ballot votes had been counted by around 07:30.

Provincial votes

And while the city of Johannesburg was moving at a snail’s pace to provide data, the Tshwane metro – with more than 1.4m registered voters – had seen less than 1 500 votes counted by about 07:30.

The Emfuleni municipality, south of Johannesburg, was also proportionately slow as 13 772 national votes and 13 511 provincial votes had been counted out of 358 891 registered voters.

Ekurhuleni, with 1 547 459 registered voters, had yet to cross the 10% mark in vote counting.

Vote counting for the other municipalities in Gauteng, including Mogale City, Lesedi, Randfontein, Midvaal, Westonaria, and Merafong City moved at a faster pace, given their smaller sizes.

Leading the election race was the African National Congress which had surpassed the three million votes mark before 09:00.

The Democratic Alliance followed with more than a million votes.

The ANC had 3.2m votes, making up 60.4% of all counted votes.

The DA had 1.3m votes, making up 25.6% of counted votes.

The Economic Freedom Fighters had 4.3% of the votes [233 226] thus far, and the Inkatha Freedom Party 2.1% [116 574].

Parties

The Freedom Front Plus secured 1.11% of the national vote [59 437] so far, and closely behind was the United Democratic Movement with 1% [54 219].

Some political parties were struggling for survival with less than a percentage point of the national vote.

The Congress of the People was standing at 0.82% [44 183], while it was not clear yet if Agang SA would have enough support to secure a seat in Parliament.

By 09:00 Agang SA had only secured 0.20% [10 841] of the national vote.

The Workers and Socialist Party stood at 0.05% [2 778 votes] and the Pan Africanist Movement 0.02% [1 342].

– SAPA