JOHANNESBURG — The ruling African National Congress (ANC) took a clear lead yesterday in South Africa’s first “Born Free” election, featuring voters with no memory of the white-minority rule that ended in 1994.
Election officials said they were investigating a shooting death in rural KwaZulu-Natal, the home of President Jacob Zuma. The incident was a rare blot on an otherwise peaceful vote.
The ANC, the liberation movement that swept to power two decades ago under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, had 59,7 % of the vote with a third of ballots counted, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said.
Its nearest rival, the Democratic Alliance, held 26,7%, backing predictions the party would improve on the 16,7% it won five years ago as it gradually sheds its image as the political home of privileged whites.
The ultra-left Economic Freedom Fighters, led by Julius Malema, a populist politician who was expelled from the ANC, was in third place with 4,3%.
While voting in the fifth election since the end of apartheid ran smoothly, an IEC spokesman said it was investigating the killing of what the ANC said was one of its members.
The unidentified person was sitting at an ANC desk outside a polling station when they were shot dead, the party said, adding the act was “clearly calculated to undermine free and fair elections”.
Pre-election polls had put ANC support near 65%, a touch below the 65,9% it won in the 2009 election that brought Zuma to power.
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—Reuters
