South African ruling African National Congress (ANC) headed by incumbent President Thabo Mbeki led Thursday morning the general elections with 2.36 million votes or 65.62 percent cast in the polls on Wednesday.

Thabo Mbeki, who stands for the second term in office, is among 8000 candidates from 37 political parties contesting across the country for more than 800 seats in the national and provincial parliaments.

According to the vote counting by 7:30 am on Thursday, the Democratic Alliance (DA) was in second place with 643,170 votes (17.82 percent), followed by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) with 143,195 votes (3.97 percent) and the New National Party with 87,605 (2.43 percent).

Other parties in the race attracted very few votes, with the Keep It Straight and Simple party lagging the furthest behind, with only 1416 or 0.04 percent of the votes. However, deputy chiefelectoral officer Norman du Plessis said there was no indication yet of the voter turn-out.

The ANC is bound to have a landslide victory, and it gained more votes than any other party even in the two provinces it didn't control.

In the hotly contested province of KwaZulu-Natal, stronghold ofthe IFP, the ANC was leading with 146,151 votes (43.1 percent), followed by the IFP with 124,533 (36.73 percent), and the DA with 38,890 votes (11.47 percent). The IFP's other alliance partner, the Freedom Front Plus, had 1415 votes (0.42 percent) by 6:30 am.

In the Western Cape, the ANC had 207,301 votes (42.09 percent),while the DA gained 152,537 votes (30.97 percent).

In the other seven provinces the ANC used to have a majority, the party won easily with wide margin, gaining more than 70 percent of the votes in five of the provinces.

Source: Xinhua