With 99.96% of the votes counted in Gauteng, the ANC has won the province with a slight majority of 50.1%.(Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
The ANC has retained its majority in Gauteng by the slightest margin in its history.
With 99.96% of the votes counted in Gauteng, the ANC has won the province with a slight majority of 50.1%. More than 4.3 million voters came out to vote on May 8 in Gauteng, with just more than 2.1 million ballots cast for the ANC.
This will enable the party to occupy the requisite 37 seats in the legislature to form a majority government — it takes about 58 000 votes to get a seat.
Though the party will retain the province by the skin of their teeth, it decreased its support by three percentage points from the 2014 national elections when it was able to retain 40 seats. The Democratic Alliance decreased its support by four percentage points.
Using the calculation of 58 000 votes for a seat, there are only four parties in total that will receive seats in the Gauteng legislature — the Democratic Alliance as the official opposition, with the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Freedom Front Plus taking up the remainder of the seats.
The Gauteng province’s numbers were the last to trickle on Friday night with more than 60 areas that had not been captured, including Soweto, which had 62 voting districts uncaptured. Areas still outstanding included Johannesburg, Tembisa, Roodepoort, Centurion and Mamelodi.