South Africans still trust the ANC, says Mthembu

The ANC's preliminary lead nationally in the local government polls proves that South Africans still trust the ruling party, Jackson Mthembu has said.

Tshwane – The African National Congress’s preliminary lead nationally in results from Wednesday’s government polls proves that people of South Africa still trust the ruling party, ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu said on Friday.

“We are quite humbled and very happy that people of South Africa still trust the African National Congress. Of course we have had setbacks in areas like the Nelson Mandela Bay but we are magnanimous in victory and also magnanimous in defeat because we are democrats,” Mthembu said at the IEC’s national results operations centre in Tshwane.

“At national level, the people of South Africa have, in their majority, still voted for the African National Congress. As you can see, we are standing at over 50 percent. We are now at over 54 percent nationally and that amounts to over 13 million votes that people of South Africa have given to the ANC – out of the 26 million voters we have in the country.”

By 9.30am, the IEC’s results website indicated that the ANC was at 54.29%. The Democratic Alliance was following at 26.4% percent and the Economic Freedom Fighters had garnered 4.51% percent.

These figures are from 20 713 (91 percent) of the 22 612 voting districts in South Africa.

African News Agency