Developing story: this report will be updated as the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) releases more results. All figures are provisional and come from a small share of voting districts.

Counting is under way after Wednesday's local government elections, and the first returns show the ANC and the DA close together. Only a small fraction of voting districts has been counted, so these numbers are not a forecast of the final outcome.

A results tracker that compiles IEC counts, last checked at 02:35 on Thursday 5 November, showed between about 840 and 980 of 23,696 voting districts counted, roughly 3.5% to 4.1%. The tracker itself gave two slightly different counts, which is why we give a range.

What the early figures show

On the proportional representation (PR) ballot, with 120,092 valid votes counted so far, the tracker showed:

  • ANC: 34.8% (41,814 votes)
  • DA: 32.4% (38,889 votes)
  • VF Plus: 6.2% (7,412 votes)
  • Patriotic Alliance: 4.7% (5,633 votes)
  • EFF: 4.2% (5,087 votes)
  • SACP: 3.1% (3,748 votes)
  • MK Party: 2.5% (3,026 votes)

Turnout in the districts counted so far was shown as 48.1%, based on about 121,950 of 253,723 registered voters in those districts.

Why the picture will change

The districts counted so far are not spread evenly across the country. The tracker showed 317 of 4,979 districts counted in the Eastern Cape, where the ANC led with 50.3%, and 93 of 1,623 in the Western Cape, where the DA led with 63.4%. By contrast, only 22 of 2,836 districts had been counted in Gauteng, where the DA led with 35.1%, and 29 of 5,028 in KwaZulu-Natal, where the MK Party led with 33.5%.

Because Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal are among the largest provinces and had barely begun counting, the national shares are likely to move considerably as more results arrive.

What we do not yet know

We do not yet have the IEC's own national summary at this stage of counting, and the tracker's two counts of districts do not match exactly. We also do not know how many councils will end up hung, which will decide how much coalition bargaining follows. Treat any claim about final results that does not come from the IEC as unconfirmed.