The Independent Electoral Commission has counted every single vote in the Western Cape but would not confirm the province’s election results.
By 7pm last night, the votes were being audited and 90 percent (or 1 439 out of 1 586) voting districts’ ballots had been confirmed.
The Democratic Alliance had a landslide win with 69 percent of the votes in the City of Cape Town metro, equalling 1.2 million votes.
The African National Congress came second with 22 percent equalling 406 906 votes, followed by the Economic Freedom Fighters who managed to scrape together 3 percent of the Cape vote, or 55 240 marks on ballot papers.
Patricia de Lille, who is retaining her seat as Cape Town mayor, says they are humbled by the win.
“The only way we could have grown as we did was by getting the support of Blacks, Whites, Coloureds and Indians. And so the Democratic Alliance has broken out of our traditional base,” she says.
At 7pm, 83 percent of the ballots across the country had been counted with the ANC having secured 53.63% of the votes and 85 of the councils.
The DA took 27.41% of the votes and 18 councils, while the EFF had 7.4% of the votes but had not secured any councils as yet.
The IEC said the country’s bigger and hotly contested metros would only be finalised today.
The race between the ANC and the DA in the Johannesburg and Tshwane (Pretoria) metros is a nailbiter.
While the DA started off with a nice lead yesterday morning, the ANC quickly closed the gap by lunchtime in both metros.
IEC deputy chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo says the eThekwini counting process got off to a late start yesterday, while counting in Tshwane and Johannesburg only hit the halfway mark last night.
The ANC has maintained its title as ruling party in the Sol Plaatje City Council in Kimberley.
The IEC was to announce the final results of the hotly contested Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality by late last night.
At 8pm last night, the DA was leading with 49% to the ANC’s 39%.
Western Cape IEC head Courtney Sampson says all provincial results will be officially announced at the National Results Centre in Pretoria on Saturday.
He says: “This was one of the most discussed elections and many of the challenges and risks we foresaw never materialised.”