Pretoria – Former president Nelson Mandela would have been happy with the 2014 elections, and would have encouraged voters to give the ANC another chance, believes Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane.

“He would have voted for the ANC, and he would have encouraged everybody to give the ANC another chance,” she told News24.

Mokonyane was sitting next to Mandela’s former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, at the IEC’s national results operations centre in Pretoria.

Madikizela-Mandela declined interviews.

Mokonyane added that she was very happy with the ANC’s result in Gauteng.

“Everybody thought that the ANC would lose, other people came very determined that they would take over.

“We could have done better but the fact of the matter is that everybody who assumed that the ANC would not be in power has been proven wrong. But the ANC must go back and make do a proper assessment as to how did we perform, and how best we can take our percentage higher.”

Mokonyane added that the ANC was not worried about opposition parties, and its election campaign focused on what would be best for its communities rather than other parties.

“We’re not worried about the EFF, we’re worried about unemployment, poverty and inequality,” she said.

The ANC won 11.4m votes, or 62.2% of votes in the national election, and 54.92% of the vote in Gauteng. The party faced a strong challenge from the DA, which won 28.52% of the vote in the province, while the EFF received 10.26% of votes.-Sapa