On May 29, South Africans across the country cast their votes in the 2024 general election, choosing the parties or candidates they wanted to represent them in the national and provincial legislatures. Though it was billed as the most consequential election since the end of apartheid, voter turnout was only 58.6 percent, far less than in previous years.
As of Saturday, over 99 percent of the votes had been counted, and the results were all but cemented. President Cyril Ramaphosa's African National Congress (ANC), which had sustained a majority since winning the first democratic elections under Nelson Mandela in 1994, still garnered the most support, however the party fell short of the 50 percent plus one threshold.
This was thanks in large part to former ANC leader and two-term president Jacob Zuma's breakaway uMkhonto weSizwe party, referred to as MK, which managed to attract a sizable portion of the vote despite being founded less than a year ago. The MK Party also overtook former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema's far-left Economic Freedom Fighters in third place, coming in six points behind the nation's official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance.
The DA, which is led by John Steenhuisen, has long dominated in the Western Cape but struggled to find the same level of support elsewhere in the country. After campaigning extensively in the other eight provinces, it managed to grow its national voter base by one point since the last election.
According to the latest data from the Independent Electoral Commission, the ANC has come in at 40.19 percent, the DA 21.8 percent, the MK Party 14.59 percent, and the EFF at 9.5 percent. Smaller parties such as the Inkatha Freedom Party, Patriotic Alliance, Vryheidsfront Plus, and ActionSA, accounted for the remaining 14 percent.
The ANC currently leads in seven provinces, and has over 50 percent of the vote in five, Mpumalanga, the Free State, North West, the Eastern Cape, and Limpopo. In the latter, support for the party was over 74 percent. In the Western Cape the DA has held on to its majority with 53 percent, while in KwaZulu Natal the MK Party has come out with 46 percent. In those provinces, the ANC managed to garner 21.3 percent and 17.6 percent respectively.
On a national level, because the ANC failed to hold on to its majority, it will have to join forces with other parties to form a coalition government or try to rule with a minority, which is unprecedented in South African politics. Both the DA And MK have expressed a desire to work with the ANC, though as the Associated Free Press reports, a spokesperson for the latter made it clear that a deal would not be made so long as Ramaphosa was in charge.
The official results are set to be announced on Sunday, while allocation of seats will take place later in June.
