No victory party for S. Africa's ruling party: spokesperson

South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) said on Saturday that it had no plan to hold a "victory party" for the local government elections.

The ANC made the announcement hours before the final results of the elections were announced.

The ANC "notes information being circulated on social media platforms suggesting the organization has cancelled a victory party supposedly to be held following the announcement of the election results", ANC national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said.

"The information is incorrect and pure conjecture," he said.

Although the ANC traditionally holds a function at the end of an election to thank its supporters, volunteers, members and staff for their efforts during the campaign, no concrete plans had yet been made in this regard, Kodwa added.

Kodwa said both the party's leadership and membership have been immersed in campaigning in the lead-up to the elections, and "the holding of a post-election function has not been prioritized. There is no ANC victory party".

It has, however, been reported that the ANC cancelled the celebration party due to its poor performance in the elections.

The ANC suffered a considerable drop in support from voters in the local government elections, results showed on Saturday.

With most of the votes counted, the ANC's nationwide support has collapsed from 61.9 percent in 2011 to 54 percent in 2016, while support for the largest opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) has grown from 23.9 percent to 27.1 percent.

The DA's support increased in all communities, and particularly in places that were previously ANC strongholds.

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 eight metros and more than 200 municipalities. The number of registered voters stood at 26 million. Enditem