JOHANNESBURG, Nov 5 (Reuters) - South Africa's African National Congress led in early results from municipal elections on Thursday but with a sharply reduced share of the vote, although counting was still at a preliminary stage and the picture could change significantly.
With around 12% of votes counted by 0412 GMT, the ANC had about 32% of the vote, narrowly ahead of the Democratic Alliance on 30%, results from the election commission showed.
The early tally was not yet representative of the national vote, with only a small proportion of districts reporting in populous Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, home to some of the country's biggest cities.
The Nov. 4 vote was widely predicted to see the ANC lose ground nationally as voters punished it for high crime rates, corruption scandals and failing basic services such as water and electricity.
(Reporting by Sfundo Parakozov and Nilutpal Timsina;Writing by Bate Felix and Nellie Peyton;Editing by Alexander Winning)
