Nearly all the ballots have been counted in South Africa, but the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has received only 40.21 percent votes in Wednesday’s election, well short of a majority.

For the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994, the once-dominant party will need to make a deal with other parties to form a coalition government.

The Democratic Alliance (DA), the main opposition party, received the second-highest number of votes (21.78 percent) followed by the MK party (14.59 percent) and EFF (9.51 percent).

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) will announce the official results on Monday night at 6pm local time (16:00GMT).

Ahead of the May 29 elections, a record 27.7 million South Africans registered to vote. However, only 16.2 million votes were cast on election day, resulting in a voter turnout of 58.61 percent – the lowest ever in South Africa’s 30-year democratic history.

In fact, voter turnout has been on a gradual decline in recent years. In 1999, nearly 90 percent of the registered voters cast their ballots, while the 2019 election had a 66 percent turnout.