The ANC, which has dominated the country’s politics since Nelson Mandela led it to victory in 1994, is polling below 50% with half the votes counted, meaning it will likely have to form a coalition to stay in power.
South Africa looks set for a change in government for the first time since the end of apartheid, according to partial results from the closest election in that time.
With more than half of votes counted across the country, the ruling African Nation Congress (ANC) is well short of a majority.
Less than 42% of voters have backed the ANC so far, well down on the 57.5% it received in the last national poll in 2019 and a far cry from the peak of 70% it polled in 2004.
Any deal could include the leading opposition party, the Democratic Alliance party, which has been polling at around 24% so far and whose leader, John Steenhuisen, has said he is open to working with the ANC.
Mr Steenhuisen said: “The way to rescue South Africa is to break the ANC’s majority and we have done that.
“They are going to end up in the low forties and that obviously opens up a whole new universe for politics in South Africa and to start building something better for the people of South Africa.”
He said he would have to first speak with a group of other parties that he has a pre-election agreement with and wouldn’t open talks until after all the results were in.