JOHANNESBURG — South Africans showed their loyalty yesterday to the party that led them out of apartheid, propelling the African National Congress toward a resounding victory that would give it the power to govern unchallenged.
Partial returns from the third all-race national election Wednesday showed the ANC leading in all nine provinces and gaining the two-thirds majority in Parliament that would allow it, if it chooses, to amend the constitution at will.
The Independent Electoral Commission has yet to verify the results reported by polling stations.
The winner of the election on the 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid was a foregone conclusion, but the size of the majority showed South Africans had not lost faith in the party despite continuing poverty and high unemployment.
“It demonstrates confidence among South Africans in the leadership of the ANC,” said party spokesman Steyn Speed. “It is a trust that goes back for decades.”
Long lines formed outside polling places across the country Wednesday as people of all races cast ballots for a 400-member National Assembly, which meets next week to select the president.
Nine provincial assemblies also were elected and will in turn select delegates to the 90-member National Council of Provinces, Parliament’s second chamber.
The new president will be sworn in April 27, the day South Africa celebrates a decade of democracy.
With partial returns giving the ANC about 70 percent support, President Thabo Mbeki is assured a second term.
The white-led Democratic Alliance was running a distant second with 14 percent of the vote with some 60 percent of polling places reporting, electoral officials said.
It was an improvement over 9 percent in 1999. But despite a determined effort to woo black voters, gains came mostly at the expense of other parties in a fragmented opposition.
The New National Party, heir to the party that gave South Africa apartheid, took a beating. With less than 2 percent of the vote, it seems headed toward political obscurity as little more than a small regional party.
Party leader Marthinus Van Schalkwyk blamed the dismal showing on the racist beliefs of voters who objected to the party’s alliance with the ANC in the Western Cape province.
F.W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last white president, said he was disappointed because voters still seemed trapped in the past.
“The ANC still wields more power than is healthy for any democracy,” he said.
He said the voting had been influenced too much by race and ethnicity.
A resounding ANC victory puts pressure on the party to work with others quickly on such issues as black economic empowerment and ways to relieve the crushing poverty of most of its supporters, said Steven Friedman, a senior researcher at South Africa’s Center for Policy Studies.
Analysts expect debate to intensify as various ANC factions jockey for party leadership during Mr. Mbeki’s final term.
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