ANC LOOKS SET TO SHARE POWER AFTER HISTORIC ELECTION LOSS

(BBC) With most of the results now in from South Africa's election, the long-ruling African National Congress (ANC) will have to contend with sharing power after a historic loss of its parliamentary majority.

Counting in over 91% of voting districts is complete and the ANC's share of the vote currently stands at 40.25%.

Trailing behind are the Democratic Alliance (DA) on 21.7%, the MK party led by former President Jacob Zuma on 14.7% and the EFF with 9.39%.

The final results are expected over the weekend.

The ANC has always polled above 50% since the country's first democratic elections in 1994, which saw Nelson Mandela become president.

But support for the party has been dropping significantly due to anger over high levels of corruption, unemployment and crime.

One woman who has voted for the ANC in every election for 30 years switched to the DA this time, and said she wanted them out of power altogether because of the cost-of-living crisis and the frequent power-cuts.

Political analyst Sanusha Naidoo told the BBC that although there were a lot of votes still to be counted, there was no way the ANC could reach the 50% needed to form a government on its own. She said the best it could hope for was 45%

Credit: Zambian Bulletin