South Africa's ruling African National Congress party has taken a significant lead in early polls results that are expected to launch leader Jacob Zuma into the presidency.
The party says it is expecting a decisive victory in general elections that may hand its popular but controversial leader the presidency.
Returns giving the ANC a 66% lead, with over half the votes counted. Ruling party leader Jacob Zuma said that he could smell victory in general elections, addressing 2,000 cheering supporters at the ANC party headquarters.
'We are expecting a comfortable win. We will win decisively,' ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said.
The final tally could still be a day away, but the ANC holds a commanding lead over its smaller rivals with millions of supporters putting faith in Jacob Zuma despite corruption charges dropped just two weeks ago.
The threat posed by a breakaway group, the Congress of the People, appears to have fizzled, with the splinter party formed by supporters of former president and Zuma rival Thabo Mbeki taking about 7.79%.
The main opposition Democratic Alliance is hovering at 16.22% with results from over half of registered voters called.
The ANC is only trailing the opposition in Western Cape province, the stronghold of the Democratic Alliance.
The main question now is whether the ANC will win another two-thirds majority, which the party has held for five years, allowing it to make changes to the constitution.
'The debate was always whether the ANC was going to get two-thirds or fall below the two-thirds threshold. They were always going to win,' Ebrahim Fakir of the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa told reporters.
A record more than 23m South Africans registered to vote in yesterday's election, the fourth since the ANC came to power in 1994 at the end of white minority rule.
The party won nearly 70% of the vote in 2004.
Parliament will elect a new head of state in early May.
