The Western Cape looks set to remain blue as preliminary results last night showed that the Democratic Alliance is leading the polls.
By 5.30pm, with 49 percent of votes counted, the DA was leading the provincial regional ballot with 357 971 votes, while the ANC stood at 127 851 votes.
The surprise package of the day one of counting was the Patriotic Alliance (PA) who came in third with 72 803 votes, ahead of the EFF, which had 31 178 votes.
New kid on the block, the National Coloured Congress, found itself in the top 5 as well, with 25 331 votes, beating the GOOD party who stood at 11343 votes.
The province has 1,572 voting districts.
In the provincial ballot, the DA was also leading the pack with 232 776 votes, while the ANC was at 104 976, followed by PA with 51 103 votes and the EFF with 21 701 votes.
Joseph Farmer, PA provincial chairperson, says his party will end the polls very strong, as they are currently in third place.
Asked if his party will consider forming a coalition with other parties, Farmers said: “We will have to see. Coalition is definitely on the cards, but to speculate at this time would be very wrong because that will be done on a different level.
The DA's Western Cape premier candidate, Alan Winde, said that although it’s too early to celebrate, he is very confident that the party will retain power in the province.
“Let’s not call it yet, but a couple of stations and analysts have already called it. We want to thank our voters, especially those who spent many hours in the queue on Wednesday. We are confident that we are not going to have coalitions in the province and that we will get the majority,” said Winde.
ANC spokesperson in the Western Cape, Khalid Sayed, said while it’s too early to celebrate, he is very confident that the ANC will do well in these elections and increase the number of its supporters in the province.
GOOD Party’s Brett Herron, whose party was at 5,600 votes on the provincial ballot at 7pm, also said it was too soon to call it: “We are waiting for more votes from the urban areas to be counted, as traditionally our strongest supporters are in urban areas.”
Prof Bheki Mgomsezulu said the DA will retain power in the province, but its numbers will be reduced.
“The PA has surprised everyone, and it's getting most of its support from the coloured community. The DA will be in power again however not with huge margins.”
Nationally, the ANC was leading the pack with 1 841 163 (42.31%) million votes, followed by the DA on (1 070 723) or 24.6%.
In a shocking turn of events, Jacob Zuma’s MK Party (9.38% nationally) trounced the competition in KwaZulu-Natal, and is now in third place, beating the EFF who has 9.1% of the national vote.
Final results are expected to be announced on Sunday by the IEC.