South African local elections - Ruling ANC ahead in early counting

In second place is the Democratic Alliance (DA) with 37.5 per cent of the votes cast on Tuesday. In the last local elections, held in 1996, the ANC won 58.02 per cent of the vote. The Democratic Party and the New National Party, which merged last year to form the DA, received 3.48 per cent and 18.02 per cent of the vote respectively.

Voting on Tuesday in the country's second multiracial local government elections since the end of apartheid was marred by the deaths of seven people. Five men and a woman, who died after gunmen opened fire on voters at a polling station in Mandela Park, east of central Johannesburg. In Somkele, in KwaZulu-Natal province, another voter was killed in a shooting police said could be related to factional fighting.

The ruling ANC was dealt a setback in President Thabo Mbeki's voting district. Johannes van Zyl of the Democratic Alliance (DA) won 3,423 votes, or 77 per cent, compared to the 16 per cent garnered by the candidate of Mbeki's ANC in the district where Mbeki and his deputy, Jacob Zuma, had voted on Tuesday, the SAPA news agency reported. Political analysts last week said the elections would show whether the DA, created by the merger of the Democratic Party and the New National Party, could reach beyond its traditional electorate of white and mixed-race South Africans and attract black votes. Recent surveys showed much dissatisfaction in the ANC among blacks, mainly because of the former liberation movement's failure to deliver on its extravagant promises. According to one of the polls, confidence in the government fell from 60 per cent in November last year to 43 per cent in September this year.

(dpa)