ANC projected to win 57.3% of national vote, as Gauteng coalition looms: CSIR

The ANC is projected to win 57.3% of the national vote and will drop below 50% in Gauteng, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) said on Thursday, based on voting trends thus far.

The government scientific research body has projected the end result accurately at a very early stage in the counting, in the past.

According to its model, the DA will win 21.6% of the vote and the EFF 9.5%. Both the ANC and the DA are set to get a lower proportion of the vote than in the 2014 election in which the ANC won 62.1% and the DA 22.1%. The EFF will grow to 9.5% from 6.35% in 2014, and will probably show the strongest growth of any party.

Real danger lurks for the ANC in Gauteng, which the CSIR projects will get 48.7% making a coalition government in the province inevitable.

However, according to the projections the party will have an array of partners to choose from and might be able to cobble together an alliance with smaller parties to get over the line. Alternatively, it has the EFF (projected to win 13.6%) or the DA (28.8%) to choose from.

In the Western Cape the DA will be home safe with 55.8% — close to what it achieved in 2014 but a significant drop from the 63.6% it won in the municipal elections in 2016.

- BusinessLIVE