Pretoria - With the current preliminary elections results, election analysts believe the ruling African National Congress will retain its two thirds majority rule.
Speaking to BuaNews in the early parts of Thursday morning at the Results Operation Centre (ROC) in Pretoria, Professor David Moore from the University of Johannesburg said the ANC is convincingly doing well and it is undoubtedly going to win the elections.
"The ANC is a popular party in the country and certainly it will retain its two thirds majority. This preliminary results show clearly that the ANC will win the elections, while the Democratic Alliance (DA) will remain as the official opposition," he said.
Professor Moore affirmed that the ruling party has a strong support in eight out of the nine provinces except in the Western Cape where the DA is leading with more than 49 percent compared to ANC with 27.7 percent.
He added that it will not be possible for the ANC to win the province given the fact that the people in the province have a strong belief that DA leader Helen Zille can deliver better services.
"After winning the global mayor of the year in 2008, people in the Western Cape suddenly considered the DA as the best political party that can improve service delivery in the province," Professor Moore told BuaNews.
Professor Moore's sentiments were also shared by Senior Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council, Dr Mpilopearl Sithole.
"The ANC is likely to loose the Western Cape Province because it has been traditionally in the hands of the privileged and due to its failure to harmonise a good relationship with the farmers," Dr Sithole said.
She said the ANC will win the Northern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Limpopo, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the North West provinces.
Dr Sithole believes that while the United Democratic Movement's (UDM) support is dropping in the Eastern Cape the Congress of the People (Cope) might become the official opposition in the province.
Meanwhile, with more than two millions votes counted at 7am on Thursday morning the ANC is still in the lead with 1 536 533 votes.
The DA is second on the leader board with 523 259 of the votes. In third place is the recently-established Cope with 192 488 votes.
The IFP is in fourth position with 722 18 votes, followed by the ID with 47 000, the Freedom Front Plus with 32 335. The UDM has 19 955, while the A Party is last with 439 votes.
