South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) has secured about 40 percent of votes, with 99 percent of ballot counting completed in the country's general elections, the Independent Electoral Commission's (IEC) results showed on Saturday.

According to the IEC results dashboard, as of 2 p.m. local time on Saturday, votes from 23,096 of 23,292 voting districts had been counted and captured. The ANC took the lead nationally, with 6,344,057 votes, representing 40.25 percent.

However, for the first time, the ruling party fell below the 50 percent needed to maintain its 30-year-old unchallenged majority in the National Assembly.

As shown by the counting results, the ANC was followed by the Democratic Alliance with 3,420,161 votes at 21.70 percent, while the newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party was in third position with 2,312,947 votes at 14.68 percent. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which is currently the third biggest party in the parliament, came in fourth with 1,491,237 or 9.46 percent of votes.

Ahead of the polls, the IEC said it would officially announce the final results of the 2024 national and provincial elections on Sunday.