ANC wins 2009 General Elections

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Pretoria -The ruling African National Congress has won the 2009 General Elections by a comfortable margin over opposition parties.

However, the ANC has failed to clinch a two thirds majority.

ANC received a 65.90 percent win of the 17,680,729 valid votes cast. It received the support of 11,650,748 voters, 65.90 percent of the votes.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) official opposition party received a 16.66 percent of votes with 2,945,829 South Africans backing the party.

Newcomer Congress of the People received 7.42 percent with 1,311,027 votes.

The ANC had, based on the high number of its votes, secured 264 seats in the national assembly and 126 on the national provincial list.

The Democratic Alliance received 67 seats in the National Assembly and 16 provincially.

New kid on the block Congress of the People took 30 seats in the larger legislature and 16 provincially.

The Inkatha Freedom Party received 18 seats in the national assembly and nine in the provincial legislature.

The United Democratic Movement, the Freedom Front Plus and the Independent Democrats each received four seats in the national assembly and three spots on the provincial list.

The Pan Africanists Congress of Azania received one seat in parliament and one on the provincial list.

The United Christian Democratic Party received two in the national house and one in the provincial one.

The African Christian Democratic Party received three seats in Parliament and three in the national provincial list.

The Azanian People's Organisation, the Azanian People's Convention and the Minority Front received one seat in each house.

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has put the final voter turn out at 77.3 percent, one the highest voter turn out in the world.

Speaking at the IEC Results Operation Centre (ROC), IEC Chairperson Brigalia Bam congratulated the South African public and the political parties for the political tolerance displayed and for a peaceful elections.

She said this attested to the political maturity of the country's democracy.

International observers overseeing the elections have unanimously declared the elections free and fair.

Dr Bam said: "All the parties are winners today, but democracy in the country is the ultimate winner."