ANC narrowly leads DA in early South Africa municipal election results

South Africa's ‌African National Congress ​led in early results from municipal elections on Thursday but ‌with a sharply reduced share of the vote, although counting was still at a preliminary stage and ‌the picture could change significantly.

With around 12% of ‌votes counted by 0412 GMT, the ANC had about 32% of the vote, narrowly ahead of the Democratic ⁠Alliance on ​30%, results ⁠from the election commission showed. The early tally was not ⁠yet representative of the national vote, with only a ​small proportion of districts reporting in populous Gauteng and ⁠KwaZulu-Natal, home to some of the country's biggest cities.

The Nov. ⁠4 ​vote was widely predicted to see the ANC lose ground nationally as voters punished ⁠it for high crime rates, corruption scandals and failing basic ⁠services ⁠such as water and electricity.