Politics of South Africa - Political Parties and Their Current Vote Share

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.


e • d Summary of the 22 April 2009 National Assembly election results
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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