/ 23 April 2009

FF+ sweeps Orania, slim pickings for other parties

The African National Congress managed to secure three votes (1,08%) in the conservative Northern Cape town of Orania in Wednesday's national election.

The ANC managed to secure three votes (1,08%) in the conservative Northern Cape town of Orania in Wednesday’s national election.

In an ironic twist the Congress of the People, African Christian Democratic Party as well as the Democratic Alliance received the same amount of votes in the Afrikaner enclave.

ANC Youth league president Julius Malema recently visited Orania as part of the ruling party’s election campaign to woo minority voters.

ANC president Jacob Zuma also expressed interest in visiting Orania, but sent Malema instead.

Unsurprisingly the Freedom Front Plus won an outright majority of 242 (87,2%) votes out of 279 ballots cast.

ANC members at the IEC results centre in Pretoria expressed great surprise at the election result, but pointed to the fact that Malema was campaigning in the town shortly before the elections.

At 1am on Thursday morning the ANC was leading the national poll with 53,9% (59 519 votes) and the Democratic Alliance with 26,7% (29 502 votes).

The newly formed Cope was in third place with 7,9% (8 767 votes).

The Inkatha Freedom Party received 2 172 votes while the Freedom Front Plus is on 1 755 votes.

In the provincial election results, the ANC is leading in the Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and North West.

The ANC has overtaken the DA in the Northern Cape and Limpopo where it now also has a clear lead.

The DA is ahead in the Western Cape.