ANC opens lead with early vote counting in Gauteng

JOHANNESBURG - With counting in the Gauteng province breaching the 10% mark, the African National Congress (ANC) has maintained its lead throughout Thursday morning but the Democratic Alliance (DA) said it remained more confident in its voters.

Over 260,000 valid votes have been counted in the province but that is a drop compared to the six million people in the province registered to vote.

The ANC’s lead has only been widening on the results board in Gauteng, now accounting for 37.9% of the counted votes.

The DA is over 10% behind the ANC but the DA’s Mike Moriaty said there was nothing to worry about at this stage.

"This thing will go up and down quite a lot but as things stand, I think it's looking good for us. It certainly looks far better than it was in 2019."

Surprisingly, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the MK Party remain neck and neck for the third spot, with the EFF maintaining its lead by a few percentage points.

Meanwhile, ActionSA, a general elections newcomer, seems to be struggling against the Freedom Front Plus, only breaching the 4,000 votes mark.