The Democratic Alliance is maintaining its lead in the hotly contested Western Cape, according to results released at the IEC's centre in Pretoria by late Thursday afternoon.

The DA had 466 138 votes while the ANC surpassed a quarter of a milion votes with 299 232.

Cope increased its share marginally since late morning with 88 459 votes, while the Independent Democrats garnered 60 470 votes.

Nearly a million votes were counted in the province - 967 973 people of the 2 634 439 who had registered.

Voting patterns for the provincial and the national ballot were similar in the Western Cape with counting surpassing the one million mark.

In the City of Cape Town the DA led with 207 596 votes to the 111 930 of the ANC.

The Congress of the People maintained a large lead over the Independent Democrats in the city, with 24 824 votes to the ID's 9327.

The total votes counted so far for the municipality was 371 950, about 21 percent of the 1 719 878 voters registered in the city.

Earlier IEC provincial chief electoral officer Courtney Sampson said part of the delay in releasing results for the province was a need to "manage people's tiredness".