ANC passes 10m mark
2004-04-16 12:22
Bryan Porter and Donwald Pressly
Pretoria - The African National Congress has passed the 10 million votes mark.
With nearly 95% of votes captured by midday on Friday morning, the African National Congress has nearly gathered 70% of the national vote.
But all eyes are now on KwaZulu-Natal where the Inkatha Freedom Party with the backing of its alliances hopes to prevent an ANC victory.
With the preliminary count updated at noon the ruling party was heading the national race with 10.2 million of the votes counted, which translates into 69.65% - giving it a more than two-thirds majority.
At present it can count on about 50 seats in the 400 seat National Assembly - up from the 37 it achieved in 1999 and up from the 48 it held before parliament rose this year as a result of floor crossing.
Its share of the vote is substantially down from the 23% achieved nationally when the Democratic Party and the New National Party joined together in the Democratic Alliance to fight the 2000 municipal election.
The Inkatha Freedom Party was in third place with 968 636 or 6.62% and the United Democratic Movement fourth with 338 370 or 2.31%.
The Independent Democrats with 259 681 votes or 1.78% have just beaten the New National Party into sixth position. The NNP had 252 006 votes or 1.72%.
The African Christian Democratic Party are seventh in the running with 1.62% followed closely by the Freedom Front Plus with 0.92%. The United Christian Democratic party, with 0.75% has nudged the Pan Africanist Congress down into 10th position with 0.73%.
Watch the provisional results of the national and provincial elections as they come in on News24.com