The Congress of the People was hopeful on Friday that it could fill 30 seats in Parliament after an uphill election race in which it came from behind to finish a respectable third and shake up South African politics

"At this rate we could make 30 seats. It's great," said party spokesperson Sipho Ngwema at the election results centre in Pretoria where grinning party officials posed for photographs under the electronic "scoreboard" as Cope took its millionth vote.

By late afternoon, with about 15 million votes counted, the breakaway party formed mere months ago in protest at Thabo Mbeki's political demise, had claimed more than 1.113 million votes, translating into seven to eight percent of ballots cast on Wednesday.

Political analyst and author William Gumede said the score had given the newcomer "a very good platform", adding that it was now time for its leaders to forge strong policies.

Fellow analyst Aubrey Matshiqi agreed, calling it "a remarkable success" that showed black voters were looking for a credible alternative to the African National Congress and that marked the start of a reconfiguration of South African politics.

He said Cope ate into the ANC's support but also took votes away from small opposition parties because voters believed it would prove better than those at countering the ruling party.

"What Cope has been able to capture is that our voters are prepared to vote strategically. Voters were looking for a party that could challenge the ANC more effectively.

"Cope can in future redistribute the black vote"

"Which means that Cope can in future redistribute the black vote, at the expense of the Democratic Alliance I suspect."

He said Cope could be on its way to dethroning the DA as the official opposition since that party's personal best of almost 16 percent in this election simply meant that it had consolidated its support among minority groups.

Cope's leaders have given the party's results a low-key welcome, mindful perhaps of their early claims that it could wrest power from the ANC in the Eastern Cape and take 20 percent of votes nationally or even win.

The ANC held on to the Eastern Cape by a wide margin, but Cope managed to come second and seemed set to be the official opposition in at least three more regions, an important feat two years away from fresh local elections.

Mvume Dandala, Cope's compromise presidential candidate, told reporters it was a good outcome for a "party without posters", a reference to its shoestring election budget - a reported R11-million compared to the ANC's R200-million war chest.

Cope president Terror Lekota, who quit as defence minister to lead the break away from the ANC, refused to say whether he was disappointed at missing a double digit score.

"I am humbly grateful to the voters who have listened to us."

He added that it was "historic" for a new party to win seats in every provincial legislature.

Deputy president Mbhazima Shilowa reminded reporters that Cope was the first new party born the since end of apartheid to win more than five percent of the vote.

Political analyst Steven Friedman said Cope's leaders had set themselves up for perceived failure with wild claims in the run-up to the election.

"For a new party trying to get a foothold it did quite well. But the kind of expectations placed on Cope or that Cope placed on itself were entirely unrealistic. Sam Shilowa is an intelligent adult, he should never have said they could win."

Matshiqi agreed that the party had "thought it could do much better" but advised it to avoid a messy, divisive post mortem of mistakes, which he said included fielding Dandala as a moral counterweight to ANC leader Jacob Zuma.

"Attacking Zuma's moral position backfired, especially with the withdrawing of the charges of corruption against the country's future president," he said.

Instead it should focus on consolidating its gains, which were stronger on provincial than national level, in the 2011 local elections likely to be the most competitive yet of the post-apartheid era.