- 31 May 2024 - 21:30(21:30 GMT)
Thank you for joining us
A second full day of vote counting is coming to a close with the Electoral Commission expected to announce the final results this weekend.
Follow our live election results tracker here. Read an analysis of the election winners and losers here, and get a refresher about the key issues here.
Continue following all our coverage from South Africa as we bring you the final results.
- 31 May 2024 - 21:25(21:25 GMT)
Day 2 of counting: Here’s what happened
On the second day of vote counting, here’s a recap of key developments:
- Vote counting began shortly after the polls closed late on Wednesday and continued into Thursday and Friday.
- More than 40 percent of the votes were tallied on the first day of counting.
- On Friday, just after 11pm (21:00 GMT), more than 90 percent votes were completed.
- So far, data shows voter turnout hovering around 58 percent, which is lower than the last election in 2019.
- Results released so far show the ANC in the lead with around 41 percent of the ballots, followed by the DA with 21 percent, the MK with 13 percent and the EFF with 9 percent.
- If the ANC fails to get 50 percent, as is predicted, it may be forced to form a coalition with other parties.
- Final results are expected to be announced by Sunday.
- 31 May 2024 - 21:18(21:18 GMT)
90% of votes completed
More than 90 percent of votes, or 21,000 of 23,292 voting districts, have been completed, the Electoral Commission said.
Follow our live tracker for all the latest results from South Africa’s elections.
- 31 May 2024 - 21:15(21:15 GMT)
Why this election is different
It has been almost procedural over the last three decades for the ANC to use its parliamentary majority to elect its leader as president of the country. This year may not be so simple.
With just 10 percent of votes to be completed, the ANC is on 41 percent. If trends persist and the ANC gets below 50 percent it would then need an agreement or coalition with another party or parties to stay in government and get the 201 votes it needs from lawmakers to re-elect President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The new parliament must meet for its first session within 14 days of the election results being announced to choose the president. Should the ANC lose its majority, there would likely be a feverish period of bargaining between it and other parties to form some sort of coalition before parliament sits.
It is also possible that several opposition parties could join together to remove the ANC completely from government and Ramaphosa as president if they do not have a majority. However, that is a very remote possibility.
The ANC has given no indication of who it might work with if South Africa needs an unprecedented national coalition government.
- 31 May 2024 - 21:05(21:05 GMT)
Follow our live tracker for all the latest results from South Africa’s elections.
- 31 May 2024 - 20:56(20:56 GMT)
89% of votes completed
More than 89 percent of votes, or 20,868 of 23,292 Voting Districts have been completed, the Electoral Commission said.
Follow our live tracker for results from South Africa’s elections.
- 31 May 2024 - 20:45(20:45 GMT)
When will we know the final election results?
As we’ve been reporting, more than 85 percent of the votes have now been announced.
The Electoral Commission has seven days from the date of the elections to announce the results.
Before the polls, the IEC said it would announce the final results on Sunday.
- 31 May 2024 - 20:30(20:30 GMT)
Jacob Zuma’s nine lives
Former President Jacob Zuma was a loyal ANC member for decades.
He now heads the rival MK Party, which is emerging as one of the biggest victors of the election, especially in KwaZulu-Natal province.
Zuma has survived a series of political setbacks and legal challenges over the years – but he’s always managed to make a comeback.
Read our story here for a detailed look at the nine lives of Jacob Zuma.
- 31 May 2024 - 20:20(20:20 GMT)
Voter turnout may end on all time low: Local media
South Africa’s Daily Maverick predicts this election might have the lowest voter turnout yet.
Turnout, as calculated by the Electoral Commission, has hovered at about 58 percent since yesterday, the local outlet said, adding that this figure is “unlikely to shift too drastically”.
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has predicted a final turnout figure of 60 percent, the Daily Maverick reported.
“It’s almost impossible to overstate how surprising this figure is. It is, by a long shot, the lowest turnout recorded in South African general elections since the dawn of democracy in 1994,” it said.
The results, it said, reveal a “strong anti-ANC sentiment”, among other things.
- 31 May 2024 - 20:11(20:11 GMT)
85% of votes completed
More than 85 percent of votes, or 20,196 of 23,292 Voting Districts have been completed, the Electoral Commission said.
- 31 May 2024 - 20:01(20:01 GMT)
‘Stolen vote’ allegations in Western Cape
At the Results Operating Centre in the Western Cape – the province the DA has run since 2009 – several political parties lodged an urgent objection with the Electoral Commission (IEC), local media reported.
Representatives of the parties were heard chanting “stolen votes” as they raised objections against the DA, which is in the lead with more than 90 percent of voting districts in the province completed.
The parties also jointly called for an extension of the period for submitting formal complaints.
#BREAKING The @WesternCapeDA have reached 1 million votes in the Western Cape. And opposition parties are fuming. @News24 pic.twitter.com/YDM7IogQQU
— Marvin Charles (@MarvinCharles_) May 31, 2024
- 31 May 2024 - 19:50(19:50 GMT)
Cape Town’s poor feel shunned by leaders in DA-run province
The DA, which has governed the Western Cape since 2009, calls Cape Town the “best run city in South Africa”.
The party sets itself apart from the rest of the ANC-run country, which it often lambasts as “broken, collapsing, corrupt, chaotic”.
However, social activists and working class residents question who truly benefits in Cape Town.
They argue that the reality is a tale of two cities, one for the affluent and another for the poor.
Read more here.
- 31 May 2024 - 19:35(19:35 GMT)
South Africa elections 2024 explained in maps and charts
South Africans voted in national and provincial elections to elect state legislatures and a new National Assembly, which will choose the president for the next five years.
Wednesday’s vote was the country’s seventh democratic general election since apartheid ended in 1994 when the ANC won and Nelson Mandela was elected president.
Here’s a refresher on how the elections work – explained through maps and charts.
- 31 May 2024 - 19:20(19:20 GMT)
Housing: Many poor voters feel ‘neglected’ by government
Housing is a sore topic in South Africa, which is one of the world’s most unequal countries.
Although approximately eight in 10 South Africans (83.2 percent) live in formal homes, at least 2.2 million still live in informal dwellings. Black South Africans, who make up about 80 percent of the population, are disproportionately affected.
In Johannesburg, hostels, which were first introduced on the mines and later in townships, generally housed Black men from rural parts of the country who provided a cheap source of labour under apartheid.
Today, the sprawling blocks are dilapidated and neglected, with residents saying the government does little to support them.
Read more here.
- 31 May 2024 - 19:10(19:10 GMT)
MK numbers could rise
Nationally, nearly 85 percent of the vote count is complete. But in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), the second most populous province and the stronghold of Zuma and his MK party, only 65 percent of the votes have been declared so far.
This suggests a disproportionate number of the remaining votes nationally are from KZN, which, given the MK’s dominance there, means that the ANC’s numbers could drop further – and the MK’s could rise.
Nationally, the ANC is currently garnering 41 percent of the vote and the MK about 13 percent.
- 31 May 2024 - 19:00(19:00 GMT)
Follow our live tracker for all the latest results from South Africa’s elections.
- 31 May 2024 - 18:45(18:45 GMT)
What’s next for Africa’s oldest liberation movement, the ANC?
The ANC formed in 1912.
As an anti-apartheid liberation movement, it “was banned in South Africa up until 1990 and operated in exile”, South African radio host Lester Kiewit says.
“Nelson Mandela is largely cast as some form of saint in today’s pop culture, but Nelson Mandela was a revolutionary. Nelson Mandela was a founding member of the armed resistance movement of the ANC, the uMkhonto weSizwe,” which is what Jacob Zuma’s new MK party is named after.
“[Mandela] was chosen by the ANC and the mass democratic movement to be the face of liberation in South Africa.”
Kiewit spoke to Al Jazeera’s The Take about the historical backdrop to this year’s election and whether one of the most important liberation movements on the African continent could see an end to its time in power.
Listen here.
- 31 May 2024 - 18:30(18:30 GMT)
Load shedding and water cuts: Key issues for voters
Electricity cuts have become so common in South Africa since the 2000s that Eskom, the state-owned electricity supplier, has devised a schedule for them.
It calls these periods of national exasperation “load shedding”.
Decades of low-maintenance and a lack of investment have also led to crumbling transport networks and water infrastructure.
Read more here.
- 31 May 2024 - 18:15(18:15 GMT)
Will the ANC take responsibility for the outcome of the elections?
As vote counting nears an end, people in South Africa are waiting to see if the ANC will take responsibility for the election outcome or blame President Ramaphosa for the results.
Political analyst Angelo Fick says the ANC in 2014 and 2016 “took collective responsibility for the decline in returns”.
“I’m not certain that the party can survive a change of leadership at this point, and they have … to present a face of unity despite all the wounds that they may feel, given these results,” he told Al Jazeera.
- 31 May 2024 - 18:05(18:05 GMT)
Follow our live tracker for all the latest results from South Africa’s elections.
- 31 May 2024 - 17:55(17:55 GMT)
ANC ‘survival’ depends on next five years in government: Analyst
We have more from Tasneem Essop, researcher at Wits University.
According to Essop, in order for President Cyril Ramaphosa to restore faith in the ANC, he first needs to “put together a coalition in order to govern”.
“That’s not a certainty right now, and there are a lot of politicians whose futures are hung in the balance of this election right now,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Part of this result needs to be viewed as a punishment towards the ANC, as a sort of protest against governance failures of the ANC.”
The party’s survival, she said, depends on the next five years and what they will be able to do in government, in terms of the economy – a “major point in this election” – and in terms of “social relations”.
“The conversation about jobs has been central in this election, and the conversations about the economy … have all been really central,” Essop added.
- 31 May 2024 - 17:40(17:40 GMT)
Who leads South Africa’s four main political parties?
With more than 80 percent of the votes completed, let’s bring you up to speed on the individuals leading the main political parties:
ANC: Cyril Ramaphosa
South Africa’s current president and head of the African National Congress (ANC), Ramaphosa, 71, is looking to secure his second and final election win, but many predict the ANC will not be able to secure an outright majority and will be forced to form a coalition government.
DA: John Steenhuisen
Steenhuisen, 48, leader of the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), is situating it as the party to “rescue South Africa” from the ANC.
MK: Jacob Zuma
Although former President Zuma, 82, was barred from standing as a member of parliament, he is the face of the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party, which is expected to gain seats from the ANC.
EFF: Julius Malema
Malema, 43, is the founder of the Economic Freedom Party (EFF), an anti-establishment, Marxist, Pan-Africanist party.
Read more about them here.
- 31 May 2024 - 17:35(17:35 GMT)
ANC ‘facing a new political era’
Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller, reporting from the results operations centre in Midrand, says this has been a “game-changing election” for the ANC.
“It’s facing a reality of losing its outright majority in parliament,” she said.
Under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC has “failed worse in this election than any other”, she added.
While the party scrambles to hang on to power in the short term, it may get tougher in the long term: “The party’s enjoyed a comfortable majority for three decades, but is now facing a new political era – one that’s likely to force it into regional and national coalitions to stay in power,” Miller said.
“Voters in South Africa have long seen and used elections as a means to achieve change, but many are concerned that political manoeuvring and potential compromises that lay ahead may be to their disadvantage.”
- 31 May 2024 - 17:26(17:26 GMT)
80% of votes completed
The ANC is on 41.37 percent of the vote after 81.5 percent of polling stations reported.
Follow our live tracker for all the latest results from South Africa’s elections.
- 31 May 2024 - 17:15(17:15 GMT)
ANC’s failure has ‘shocked a lot of people’, analyst says
Tasneem Essop, a researcher at Wits University in Johannesburg, said the ANC has “failed worse than expected”.
“I think this has shocked a lot of people watching this election,” she told Al Jazeera.
There are several “predictions and models” that have emerged regarding a possible coalition for the ANC, she said.
The three that are the most prominently spoken about, include the options of an “ANC-Democratic Alliance coalition, the option of ANC-EFF coalition, or an ANC-MK coalition, or a combination of those” parties.
There is also the question of how smaller parties would come into those coalitions.
“Smaller parties can demand leadership positions, or positions in a coalition, or they can demand policy positions,” she explained.
South Africa election result updates: ANC short of majority after 90% votes
Ruling ANC party sits at just under 42 percent after 90 percent of the results completed in South Africa elections.
Follow live coverage of the results here. This live page is now closed.
- The ruling African National Congress (ANC) is in the lead with over 90 percent of the votes completed. However, it is falling short of a majority.
- The Democratic Alliance (DA) sits second, while former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party is currently third.
- If the ANC does not receive more than 50 percent, it will need to make a deal with other parties to form a coalition government.
- Official results are not expected to be announced before Sunday.
Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies