South Africa's election commission will be ready to announce the full results of this week's election on Sunday, the commission's chairperson Mosotho Moepya said.
With 99.62 percent of the votes from Wednesday's election counted, President Cyril Ramaphosa's African National Congress had only 40 percent, a catastrophic slump from the 57.5 it won in 2019.
This marks a historic turning point for South Africa as the party has enjoyed an absolute majority since 1994.
The ANC must now either negotiate a coalition government or at least persuade other parties to back Ramaphosa's re-election in parliament to allow him to form a minority administration reliant on other groups for support to pass budgets and legislation.
Data from the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) showed the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA) held second place with 21.71 percent, slightly up on its 20.77 showing in 2019.
In third place was former president Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) on 12.6 percent, a surprise score for a party founded just months ago as a vehicle for the former ANC chief.
The radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, was in fourth with 9.4 percent.
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