Pretoria - With voting over in the 2016 Local Government Elections, the spotlight is now on the vote counting process.
The polls closed at 7pm last night and the Electoral Commission (IEC) is now vigorously counting ballots across the country.
Results, mainly from the smaller wards have been counted and started trickling in from 10pm last night.
By early morning, results showed that the African National Congress (ANC) is in the lead nationally.
Just after 7am on Thursday, IEC results showed that the governing party, the ANC was leading nationally with 51.17% of the votes counted thus far.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) was at 31.64%, while the new kid on the block, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), was at 6.62% with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) at 4.14%.
A provincial breakdown shows that the DA is leading in Gauteng with over 45% votes followed by the ANC with 40% and the EFF with 8.7%.
The DA is also leading in its traditional stronghold the Western Cape with 64.67%, the ANC with 24.35% and EFF with over 2% of the counted votes thus far.
In the Eastern Cape, the ANC is at 67.52%, DA at 20.17% and the EFF at 4.76%.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC is at 54.98%, followed by the IFP with 28.5% and the DA with 10.97%.
In Limpopo, the ANC is leading with over 63%, the EFF with 15.82%, while the DA has over 13.89%.
The ANC is also leading in the Northern Cape, Free State, North West and in Mpumalanga.
Despite the cold winter chill, the National Results Operational Centre (ROC) in Pretoria is a hive of activity with various media houses crunching the figures being released.
The political party seats are still empty but as the day progresses party officials are expected to visit the centre to watch the leader board.
Vote counting continues. - SAnews.gov.za
