ANC on course for first sub-50% election result as count goes on

Election officials count ballots after the closing of the local government elections, at a farm in Alewynspoort, outside Johannesburg, South Africa November 1, 2021. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

PRETORIA (Reuters) -Voter support for South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) was on course on Tuesday to drop below 50% for the first time since it ended white minority rule in 1994, according to partial returns from local polls held nationwide.

Monday's municipal elections had been widely viewed as a referendum on the ANC, tainted by corruption and facing a backlash over poor stewardship of an ailing economy beset by chronically high unemployment, and on its uninterrupted 27 years in charge of Africa's most industrialised nation.