The results coming in are getting worse for the ANC.
With all the votes counted and declared, the party has lost its outright majority in Northern Cape – a sparsely populated province which has Kimberly as its biggest city – a place where British colonialist Cecil John Rhodes made his fortune from its diamond fields.
In the vote for its provincial legislature, the ANC got 49% followed by the DA’s 21% and the EFF’s 13% – these shares are also reflected in the Northern Cape’s vote for the national parliament.
We don’t yet have the final result from South Africa’s two biggest provinces – Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. But the ANC is expected to lose its outright majority in Gauteng, while it is likely to be pushed into second spot in KwaZulu-Natal by the breakaway party led by former President Jacob Zuma.
So, there would probably be coalitions in at least three of South Africa’s nine provinces – along with a coalition at national level.