The ANC is assured of its fifth landslide election victory on Wednesday, but analysts say it will spell the start of a turbulent second term for President Jacob Zuma.
Twenty years into democracy the ruling party has fought its toughest yet re-election campaign, clouded by scandal, inner-alliance strife, and a spike in violent service delivery protests in the run-up to the poll.
Long-standing perceptions of corruption converged into a single word -Nkandla - and attached themselves directly to the president in a controversy turned into a central campaign issue by the opposition.
But analysts said the extent to which this has worked and would translate into votes for smaller parties on Wednesday remained to be seen.
"The extent to which voters are significantly angered by corruption to shift their voting patterns is not clear," political analyst Judith February said in a study by the Institute for Security Studies released on the eve of the vote.
The last pre-election Ipsos survey gave the ANC 63 percent of the vote and the DA 22 percent, but factored in a wide margin of error since just over a third of the 25 million registered voters felt no party reflected their views.
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