South Africa Ruling Party Shows Weakest Results in Elections in Over 20 Years

South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), showed the worst result since 1994, party was supported by 54 percent of voters.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), is seeing its weakest performance at the municipal elections in more than two decades.

The South Africans headed to polling stations on Wednesday to elect district and local municipal councils in the country's nine provinces.

According to the Electoral Commission of South Africa, the ANC has the support of almost 54 percent of voters, which is its worst result since 1994.

The ruling party is followed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) with about 27 percent of the votes.

The ANC is dominating in almost all nine provinces apart from Western Cape, where the majority of voters cast their ballot for the DA, which also has support in the provinces of neighboring Eastern Cape and Gauteng.

More than 200 political parties and 61,000 candidates are participating in South African municipal elections, which are the fifth in a row in the country.

The elections are held a month after a court ordered South African President Jacob Zuma, whose second term ends in 2019, to repay over $500,000 to the government for the misuse of public funds to upgrade his Nkandla private home.