The African Christian Democratic Party is "devastated" at its performance in the 2009 election, as preliminary results continued to pour into the IEC Centre on Friday.

Speaking from the results centre in Pretoria, party Chairperson Bruce Harbour could not contain his disappointment when asked about the party's 132 172 votes.

"We are devastated," he said. "I can't believe it."

With 17 014 443 votes counted by 8.30pm on Friday, it appeared the party would not match the seven parliamentary seats it obtained in the 2004 election.

Around 73 percent of 23 181 997 registered voters' ballots had been counted. It remained unclear how many people voted at the polls, though the IEC places voter turnout around 77 percent.

Five years ago, the ACDP finished the election race with 250 272 votes nationally.

Harbour said the party thought it would fare better in the polls. He felt that the formation of the Congress of the People may have eaten into the votes of the smaller parties.

In 2004, the ACDP beat the FF Plus and trailed the ID by a few votes though it obtained the same number of seats as Patricia de Lille's party in parliament.

The preliminary 2009 results leave the ACDP trailing both parties to be placed eighth in the race.

Harbour said the party's election machinery barely compared with the likes of the cash-flush ANC and DA, but it had "stepped up" its efforts this time around.

"We did step up our campaign with rallies broadcast live on television, just this past weekend we had one at the Union Buildings... but it's not reflected in our performance," he said.

Faring poorly

He observed that all the "religion-based" parties faired poorly in the polls and this was something the party "had to look at".

"The voters seem to be saying they don't see a need for it [religious parties] in Parliament," he said.

Going forward, the ACDP would consider entering coalitions with other parties.

"We are open to multi-party government... I don't like to call it coalitions," Harbour said.

All three faith-based parties contesting the election obtained less than one percent of the votes.

Another faith-based party, the Islamic Al-Jam-ah, garnered a mere 21 973 votes (0.13 percent) of the votes tallied thus far, coming in at the bottom half of the list. The United Christian Democratic Party had 65 281 votes (0.39 percent).