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South Africa's ruling party receives more votes than ever: results

Xinhua, August 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

An unprecedented 14 million votes have been cast in favour of South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) party in the 2016 local government elections, results showed on Friday.

This translates to 54 percent of the national vote, and dramatically exceeds numbers recorded in the previous municipal election in 2011 when the ANC secured 8.1 million votes, according to results coming in to the Independent Electoral Commission's (IEC's) National Results Center in Pretoria.

As results continue to come in, ANC votes are expected to increase even further, a sign of ringing endorsement of the ANC's service delivery program by the citizens of South Africa, ANC national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said.

These figures come at a time of intense speculation around voter apathy and citizen's alleged lack of interest in political processes, he said.

They also heavily contradict the speculation of numerous pollsters and analysts in the lead-up to the election.

As counting continues, the numbers show that the ANC is leading in all the country's nine provinces, barring the Western Cape.

With 94 percent of all votes counted by 11:00 a.m. on Friday morning, the ANC had secured the majority of votes in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, Kwa-Zulu/Natal, the Northern Cape, the Eastern Cape, the Free State and Gauteng.

In nearly all these provinces the margins are wide, with opposition parties trailing far behind.

"The ANC is both honoured and humbled that so many South Africans have once again entrusted us with their vote.

"Twenty-two years into democracy, the people of South Africa have shown that not only are they committed to participatory democracy, but they also believe the ANC is their only political home," said Kodwa.

The ANC is optimistic that the party's national lead in the polls will increase further as results continue to come in, he said.

The elections, seen by many as being the most contested since 1994, took place on Wednesday.

For the first time in history, the elections saw 200 political parties and over 61,000 candidates participating to seek control of more than 200 municipalities. The number of registered voters stood at 26 million. Enditem