The ANC looks set to lose its two-thirds majority by a narrow margin, but South Africans will have to wait until Saturday afternoon to learn the official result of the elections.

Sources at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said after counting nearly 18 million votes, it would make a formal announcement in Pretoria at 5pm.

The ANC insisted late on Friday that it was more than happy with its fourth landslide election victory, even though a two-thirds majority in Parliament was proving elusive this time.

Spokesperson Jessie Duarte said that whatever the exact percentage, it was clear that the ANC and future president Jacob Zuma had been handed an emphatic mandate to implement its policies.

Shortly after midnight, the party was lying at 66.05 percent followed by the DA at 16.49 percent and newcomer Cope at 7.44 percent, which would give it a solid presence in the National Assembly.

The DA was just short of an outright majority in the Western Cape with 49 percent of the vote.

Party leader Helen Zille was expected to open coalition talks with smaller parties in the racially divided province, the only one where the DA wrested power from the ANC.

In the early hours of Saturday, results from about a dozen voting districts around the country were still outstanding. These were expected to take a while to consolidate as tired IEC officials took a break before resuming work.

The IEC also had to process 12 official objections from opposition parties on suspected irregularities before it could reveal the final result of the poll.