Political Parties and Their Current Vote Share
For other political parties see List of political parties in South Africa. An overview on elections and election results is included in Elections in South Africa.General elections take place every 5 years. The first fully multi-racial democratic election was held in 1994, the second in 1999, the third in 2004, and the most recent in 2009. Until 2008, elected officials were allowed to change political party, while retaining their seats, during set windows which occurred twice each electoral term, due to controversial floor crossing legislative amendments made in 2002. The last two floor crossing windows occurred in 2005 and in 2007.
After the 2009 elections, the ANC lost its two-thirds majority in the national legislature which had allowed it to unilaterally alter the constitution.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) are in a formal alliance with the ruling ANC, and thus do not stand separately for election.
| Party | Leader | Votes | % | +/− | Seats | +/− from last election |
+/− from before this election |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| African National Congress | Jacob Zuma | 11,650,748 | 65.90 | −3.80 | 264 | −15 | −33 | |
| Democratic Alliance | Helen Zille | 2,945,829 | 16.66 | +4.29 | 67 | +17 | +20 | |
| Congress of the People | Mosiuoa Lekota | 1,311,027 | 7.42 | +7.42 | 30 | +30 | +30 | |
| Inkatha Freedom Party | Mangosuthu Buthelezi | 804,260 | 4.55 | −2.42 | 18 | −10 | −5 | |
| Independent Democrats | Patricia de Lille | 162,915 | 0.92 | −0.81 | 4 | −3 | 0 | |
| United Democratic Movement | Bantu Holomisa | 149,680 | 0.85 | −1.43 | 4 | −5 | −2 | |
| Freedom Front Plus | Pieter Mulder | 146,796 | 0.83 | −0.06 | 4 | 0 | 0 | |
| African Christian Democratic Party | Kenneth Meshoe | 142,658 | 0.81 | −0.80 | 3 | −4 | −1 | |
| United Christian Democratic Party | Lucas Mangope | 66,086 | 0.37 | −0.38 | 2 | −1 | −1 | |
| Pan Africanist Congress | Letlapa Mphahlele | 48,530 | 0.27 | −0.45 | 1 | −2 | 0 | |
| Minority Front | Amichand Rajbansi | 43,474 | 0.25 | −0.11 | 1 | −1 | −1 | |
| Azanian People's Organisation | Jacob Dikobo | 38,245 | 0.22 | −0.03 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| African People's Convention | Themba Godi | 35,867 | 0.20 | +0.20 | 1 | +1 | −1 | |
| Movement Democratic Party | 29,747 | 0.17 | +0.17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Al Jama-ah | 25,947 | 0.15 | +0.15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Christian Democratic Alliance | Theunis Botha | 11,638 | 0.07 | −0.13 | 0 | 0 | −1 | |
| National Democratic Convention | 10,830 | 0.06 | +0.06 | 0 | 0 | −4 | ||
| New Vision Party | 9,296 | 0.05 | +0.05 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| United Independent Front | Nomakhaya Mdaka | 8,872 | 0.05 | +0.05 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Great Kongress of South Africa | 8,271 | 0.05 | +0.05 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| South African Democratic Congress | Ziba Jiyane | 6,035 | 0.03 | +0.03 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Keep It Straight and Simple | 5,440 | 0.03 | −0.01 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Pan Africanist Movement | 5,426 | 0.03 | +0.03 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Alliance of Free Democrats | 5,178 | 0.03 | +0.03 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Women Forward | 5,087 | 0.03 | +0.03 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| A Party | 2,847 | 0.02 | +0.02 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Total | 17,680,729 | 100.00 | 400 | |||||
| Spoilt votes | 239,237 | |||||||
Notes:
Read more about this topic: Politics Of South Africa
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“Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves,—sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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“But also the constituency determines the vote of the representative. He is not only representative, but participant. Like can only be known by like. The reason why he knows about them is, that he is of them; he has just come out of nature, or from being a part of the thing.”
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“Among those who share a throne there can be no loyalty; Dominion’s ever impatient consort.”
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