ATM leader Mzwanele Manyi said his partys campaign strategy was largely rooted among the churches.
Over 5.25-million votes had been counted just after 12.30pm on Thursday.
Almost 27-million South Africans registered to vote to elect the country’s sixth democratic administration, with many heading to the polls on Wednesday in a day marred by bad weather, protests and worrying potential irregularities.
Only 38% of voting stations are in.
While it is too early to determine the final performance of each party, the ANC is on top the leader-board at the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s results operation centre (ROC) in Tshwane, with 55.88%, the Democratic Alliance (DA) with 24.76% and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on 8.91%.
The EFF was followed by the Freedom Front Plus, with 2.96% of the vote and the IFP with 1.82%.
In 2014, the DA won 22.23% of the vote, with the EFF winning 6.35%. The voter turnout in 2014 was 73.48%.
The Mail & Guardian caught up with Mzwanele Manyi of the African Transformation Movement (ATM), whose distinctive laughter carries throughout the bustling results centre. As it stands, the new party has landed a spot in the top ten parties, with 0.46% of votes counted.
“We are quite elated as ATM being the new kid on the block. It is still early days … If you consider us in comparison with other new parties, we don’t think we are faring badly at all,” Manyi told the M&G.
Manyi said his party’s campaign strategy “was largely rooted among the churches”. “Those churches were our building block. But it was not just churches, we also went to communities,” Manyi said.
The IEC will provide an update on the counting process at 2pm on Thursday.