S.Africa: ANC wins, but may fall short of 2/3 mark

Near-complete results from South Africa's elections put the long-governing party in the lead, but just short of the two-thirds majority mark it easily crossed in the last election. The tally set the stage for Jacob Zuma's rise to the presidency, having overcome sex and corruption scandals.
But politicians will likely make much of the African National Congress' apparent slide, though a statistician might say the difference is insignificant between its 66.02 percent result this year and the 69.69 percent it took in 2004, when it was led by Zuma's rival, Thabo Mbeki.
The ANC may still take two-thirds of the 400-member parliament, after the final tally is done and the seats are allotted.
The small slide for the ANC could be seen as a message that voters want some limits on the party. ANC rivals had argued Zuma should not have the two-thirds majority needed to enact major budgetary plans or legislation unchallenged, or to change the constitution.
It could be linked to the split in the movement that defeated apartheid. A new, black-led party formed by disgruntled former ANC leaders close to Mbeki was placed third in the race, with just over 7 percent of the tally early Saturday.
The main opposition Democratic Alliance got about 16 percent, according to preliminary results from 17.6 million votes counted. In total more than 77 percent of the country's 23 million registered voters cast ballots.
A strong ethnic vote from Zulus in Zuma's rural homeland helped boost the ANC, which sees the populist Zuma as the first leader who can energize voters since the legendary Nelson Mandela. Supporters confident of an ANC victory have been celebrating since voting ended Wednesday.
But with his all-but-official victory, Zuma faces a heavy responsibility — meeting expectations for change among South Africa's impoverished black majority.
Some say Zuma is too beholden to unions and leftists, and will not be able to fulfill his promises of creating jobs and a stronger social safety net. At the end of the campaign, Zuma was talking not about creating jobs, but staving off job losses.
The ANC has swept all four multiracial ballots held since the 1994 end of apartheid in South Africa, but the party has never managed to get over 70 percent.
The country's racial divide still runs deep, as seen from the results in the Western Cape province. Mixed-race voters, feeling marginalized now after being treated better than blacks under apartheid's racist rules, make up more than half of the Western Cape's population and voted largely for the opposition Democratic Alliance.
Whites also turned out in large numbers for the largely white Democratic Alliance, which has courted mixed-race voters and was close to gaining an outright majority in the Western Cape provincial legislature. The ANC trailed with less than one-third of the vote.
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille had said her main election goals were to stop the ANC's two-thirds majority and to win the Western Cape, which is the heart of the country's wine and tourism industries. Zille, who won praise for her stint as mayor of Cape Town, is now expected to become the province's premier.
Mixed-race people — many of whom trace their ancestry to Malay slaves — enjoyed more rights than blacks under apartheid and emerged skeptical of the ANC, which they see as a black party. The ANC, though, has support from some mixed-race South Africans and whites across South Africa, and politicians from both groups have prominent roles in the party.
The ANC lost support in eight of the country's nine provinces, with a drop of up to 10 points in some cases, but still won those provinces. However, they gained over 15 percent of support in KwaZulu-Natal at the expense of the traditional Zulu party, the Inkatha Freedom Party.
The ANC breakaway party, known as COPE, came in second in five of the provinces, a major achievement for a group that only had a few months to prepare. link..