The ANC took a hit in its heartland, the Eastern Cape, and the party would be foolish not to take it very seriously. Five years ago the ANC got 79% of the votes in the province; this time it was 68%. That’s akin to the Republicans getting punched squarely in the nose by the Democrats in Texas! See the Daily Dispatch lead story here.

Not only is the Eastern Cape the historic home of many ANC leaders, it also constitutes the party’s biggest voting block, with the Amathole (King William’s Town, East London etc) and OR Tambo (Mthatha and surrounds) the biggest regional branches.

Even more interesting is the fact that at the Rhodes University polling station in Grahamstown, the ANC only got 18% of the national vote (and 16% provincially).

The DA cleaned up with the students, getting almost 50% of the national vote and 44% of the provincial vote. Cope got 24% of the national vote and 30% of provincial vote.

"Surprise!'

Read the full story

Popularity: 3% [?]

With 70% of the votes counted by Friday morning, we’ve got a pretty good idea of how things have played out in the election so how does this translate into seats in Parliament? News24  has done the calculations:

1. Of the 400 seats in Parliament, the ANC has netted 190 seats so far (they’re at 65% of the vote, below the two-third’s majority).

2. The DA has got 47 seats.

3. Cope has 22.

4. The  IFP has 11 seats, UDM 3 seats, FF+ 3 seats, the ID between 2 and 3, and the ACDP has got 2 seats so far.

5. It takes 44 600 votes to get one seat based on the fact that 17.9-million people voted. Read the full News24 story here.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Who are three jokers who voted for the ANC in the Afrikaner Never Neverland, Orania?

"Nooit, man!"

Lets not forget this odd little Northern Cape dorpie owned by a group of verkrampte Afrikaans families is not too welcoming to black folk so I doubt it was the domestic, the gardener and their gogo.

News24 has a fascinating little story (click here to read) that the election results from Orania show that the FF+ won 242 votes there (out of 279 votes cast). Three votes went ot the ANC. The DA got 26 votes, Cope and the ACDP each received three and two votes were spoilt.

This after  ANC Youth League president Julius Malema went on a charm offensive there a short while back. The rest of the country may think him a bit of a buffoon but clearly he impressed three people at the back of the kerk. There’s will be dark mutterings in the pub tonight.

If you’ve forgotten what goes on in this dusty town in the lullies, click here to see their website but if your Afrikaans isn’t up to scratch, here’s a News24 feature about Orania life from a few years back.

[poll id="14"]

Popularity: 12% [?]

Moneyweb has an interesting interview with Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, the highly respected opposition leader during the apartheid years who is now a politcal analyst and businessman (chairman of the Caxton Group). Click here to read the transcripts of Alec Hogg’s radio interview with “Van”, as he call him.

Van Zyl Slabbert spells out why an ANC two-thirds majority actually means stability in the minds of businessmen:

Well, the two-thirds majority is only important if it’s deep-rooted ideological. If on the other hand the two-thirds majority promises political stability, that’s music to investors’ ears, I can promise you that. They will say, “I would rather have an ANC with a two-thirds majority committed to free enterprise and stability than have a two-thirds majority for some kind of ideological pathological movement.

Two very canny operators, Alec Hogg and Van. It’s well worth a read, especially for Hogg’s backhanded swipe at politicians at the end.

Popularity: 2% [?]

There’s only one story today: the election results and how the online media is responding. Everybody’s got the story that by 8.30am this morning, the ANC had 63.7% (2 078 352 votes) – with the largest total of votes coming from the Eastern Cape (503 730) — the DA 19.5% (636,637 votes) and Cope only 7.7% (251 200 votes).

Most of the parties’ Facebook pages are silent and the IEC’s website is not loading, possibly because of the the number of hits on it.

It’s hard to beat the immediacy of TV and radio on this one but News24 seems to have the best online package of the big online media houses, with a cool little map of SA showing the results as they come in (the Western Cape is going to the DA, the rest are sticking with the ANC). Click here to go there.

My favourite story of the past two days, however, goes to the Daily Dispatch, which ran a reader competition of people’s memories of the 1994 election. I actually got a lump in my thoat when I read this one, about a reader’s memory of his grandfather voting for the first time.

The Dispatch’s election page is also much more lively than most, with an video interviews of young people talking about the election. Each video is embedded into a Google interactive map. Nice! Click here to interract.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Which is your favourite among these cartoons done after it was announced that the NPA was dropping corruption and racketeering charges against ANC president Jacob Zuma (poll below):

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Popularity: 5% [?]