The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) predicts that the ANC could lose some six percent of votes in the 2019 South African National Government elections compared to five years ago. The ruling party won 62% of the votes in 2014, but indications are that they will drop to 56% this year.
More than 10% of the voting districts have sent their results to the Election Results Centre in Pretoria. A million votes have been counted. At this stage the CSIR predicts that the eventual number of registered voters that turned out to vote, will reach a similar percentage as in the last national and provincial elections five years ago.
The DA is expected to keep about 22% of the vote and the EFF looks to gain around 4% for a total of 10% of the vote.
Both the IFP and the Freedom Front Plus are having a strong initial showing.
“This election also seems to have been quite tough on the smaller parties,” says Jenny Holloway, senior researcher at the CSIR. “The UDM, especially, seems to have lost a substantial percentage of their support at this early stage.”
Only a few results are available for the provincial vote in Gauteng, which makes accurate predictions on the provincial race there difficult.
The final results of the elections are expected on Saturday morning.
