South Africans await election outcome

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, April 22 (UPI) -- A huge turnout in South Africa's elections that included Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela Wednesday was expected to leave the African National Congress in control.

Led by Jacob Zuma, the ANC has gained votes in each election since 1994, but Congress of the People, an ANC splinter group, threatened the party's overall power in the legislature, CNN reported.

Despite the day's cold weather, the lines were so long there were shortages of ballots so voting was extended at some polling stations, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported. Some people waited up to five hours to cast their ballots.

"This country is my country -- I have to vote for this country to be free. Maybe things can change. That's why I'm voting," one voter told ABC Online.

"We want the ruling party to continue ruling this country, because we haven't seen anything wrong with this ruling party," another voter was quoted as saying.

BuaNews reported other voters paused to watch Mandela, 90, vote at the Killarney Country Club in Houghton, where a special ballot box was set up for Madiba.

Mandela, wearing his familiar Madiba shirt in a bright yellow and a black overcoat with his trademark AIDS badge pinned to it, walked into the voting station with the help of his cane and Gauteng Premier Paul Mashatile. After voting, Mandela smiled and waved to the cheering crowd, BuaNews said.

Twenty-three million people were registered to vote.Turnout is estimated to have been more than 80 percent, the BBC reported.

Zuma appeared quietly confident when he arrived to vote.

"Never did I think as I was growing up here that one day I will cast my vote here, as I'm doing," he said. "It must be making one feel and see the difference from the olden days and the days of today where we could decide our fate."

The ANC has been hounded by corruption and accusations of failing to deliver services to the country's poor, media outlets said. Charges against Zuma were only dropped two weeks ago.