Results trickling in from South Africa's general elections showed the ruling African National Congress of (ANC) Jacob Zuma poised for a fourth comfortable victory, but with its more-than-two-thirds majority hanging in the balance, according to dpa. With 7.2 million votes counted, around a third of registered voters, the ANC had 4.7 million votes or 66 per cent of the national vote, against 16.7 per cent for the Democratic Alliance (DA) of Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) reported. The four-month-old Congress of the People, a party of breakaway ANC members loyal to ousted former president Thabo Mbeki, was shown trailing in third place with 8 per cent. In the last general election, when Zuma's arch-rival Mbeki was still president, the ANC took 70 per cent. Zuma, who had campaigned on a theme of change from Mbeki's top-down, centrist style, had appealed for another "overwhelming majority". Asked if Zuma, who was to address a victory rally in Johannesburg Thursday, would be disappointed at less than two-thirds, ANC spokeswoman Jessie Duarte said: "This (65-66 per cent so far) is a landslide, whatever way you look at it." While it was too early to predict the outcome, the liberal DA, traditionally seen as the party of the white and mixed-race minority, looked set to improve on its 2004 score of 12 per cent. As expected, the party was also well ahead in Western Cape province, where Cape Town is located. Zille, dressed in a cerise-pink jacket, said the partial results were a vindication of the party's controversial "Stop Zuma" campaign. Zille had been urging voters to erode the ANC's majority, saying it feared the populist Zuma might use it to stifle dissent. "There was nothing negative about that. Zuma is negative!, an ebullient Zille told the German Press Agency dpa.
