VOA’s Anita Powell contributed to this story from Johannesburg.
With 99.9 percent of the votes counted, South Africa’s legendary ruling African National Congress remains at the country’s helm and is set to celebrate Saturday once the results are officially announced. The new government will be formed later this month.
The ANC has won all six parliamentary elections since the nation ended apartheid in 1994.
This year, however, is the first time the ANC has won less than 60 percent of the vote.
The election commission is expected to announce the ANC remains at the top with just 57 percent of the ballots.
In recent years, corruption scandals and the sluggish economy have tainted the ANC’s image and led some voters to defect.
But top ANC officials said Friday they were undaunted by what appears to be a loss of confidence in the ANC.
“No disappointment, no surprises, we are where we thought we would be at this point in time,” Jessie Duarte, deputy secretary general of the African National Congress, told reporters at the main counting center in Pretoria.
The opposition Democratic Alliance also slipped in the polls, winning almost 21 percent of the ballots. In the 2014 elections, it won more than 22 percent of the votes.
The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters, in its second national election, earned slightly more than 10 percent of the votes which is more than EFF received in 2014.
EFF national chairperson Dali Mpofu said the party was thrilled to have topped its 2014 result, in which the party won 6 percent of the vote in its debut election.
What no one saw coming, however, was the surge in votes won by the Afrikaans-speaking VF Plus party, whose English name is Freedom Front Plus. The party’s aim is to create a homeland for the nation’s white Afrikaans-speaking minority. The fringe party surprised many casual observers by eclipsing its one-percent take in the 2014 election.