News24 | Mantashe surprised by MK Party support in KZN, but still believes ANC will win 50% of national vote

ANC National Chairperson, Gwede Mantashe, arrives at the ROC in Midrand. (Luke Daniel/News24)

• ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe says the MK Party's performance in KwaZulu-Natal has surprised him.
• But he still believes the ANC is going to do relatively well.
• He did not want to talk about tribal politics.
• Track the latest results via our Elections Map.

ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe says the MK Party's performance in KwaZulu-Natal has surprised him, but he still believes the ANC will win over 50% of the vote in the national election. 

Mantashe was the first senior ANC leader to visit the IEC results centre on Thursday as results began to show the extent of the devastation of ANC support in KwaZulu-Natal. Pockets of MKP support in Zulu-speaking areas in Mpumalanga have also appeared, which will severely undermine the ANC's support there. 

News24 elections analyst Dawie Scholtz said it was clear that there would be no outright winner in KwaZulu-Natal. 

The party, headed by former ANC president Jacob Zuma, was underestimated by the ANC, which, time and time again, has said that MKP's support would be confined north of the Tugela River, in the north of the province. However, early results show that the ANC lost out to MKP in Durban, the South Coast, and Umsunduzi. 

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Said Mantashe: "MK is doing well in KZN; they have surprised me a little bit. But they are not going to do that in other provinces… We are going to do well in Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Eastern Cape, Free State, and we are doing relatively well in the North West.

"We are going to do relatively well. We are on 42.5% now and I'm still confident we will get over 50% because there are areas we mobilised that have not come in yet."

He dismissed early projections as well as previous polls and said that "the time for dreaming is over, and the real results were coming in".

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Asked if Zulu nationalism had played a bigger role than expected, Mantashe said he did not want to talk about tribal politics. 

"I was brought up in an education system that said tribalism is a backward form of politics. So don't drag me there." 

He also said that "coalitions are consequence, you don’t plan for consequences".