We have broken the ceiling this election, says Zille

Helen Zille.

Helen Zille, leader of the opposition DA would start work on the 2016 elections from Monday, she said at her arrival in Cape Town on Saturday after her party secured the province and increased national support.

"We will take tomorrow off to give thanks for this great victory, but on Monday we start working for 2016," said Zille.

"We are the only party that grew. Everybody else went backwards in this election," she said to a group of about 250 DA supporters in their blue T-shirts who had waited in the rain to welcome her back.

"People used to say we are party of minorities. Well we got more than one million new votes and 700,000 of those votes are from black South Africans who have never voted for the DA before.

"We have broken the ceiling."

She effusively thanked her supporters in Afrikaans for the increase in the party's majority in the Cape.

"The blue wave is washing across the whole country because it started here in this city. We will turn this country around one day to a model of democracy," she said.

Earlier, Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille said she was ready to return to the position.

"If the people of Cape Town want me," she said.

"When we won the metro in 2011 with 61 percent, that paved the way for us," said De Lille.

The DA won 59.2 percent of the provincial vote, increasing its outright majority in the Western Cape.

The African National Congress (ANC) improved its support base somewhat and garnered 33.04 percent of the vote.

Nationally, the DA increased its support in the 2014 elections from 16.66 percent in 2009 to 22.23 percent to become the official opposition to the ANC which received a reduced majority mustering 62.15 percent compared with 2009 and 65.9 percent of the vote.

The results are expected to be confirmed at 6pm on Saturday by the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC).

The party will have to square up to the ANC's Marius Fransman, who will return to the province as the leader of the official opposition.

The former deputy international relations minister said he was excited about returning to the province and building the ANC structures ahead of the 2016 municipal elections.

Zille will also have to contend with the Economic Freedom Fighters which should get at least one seat in the province's legislature.

Its president Julius Malema once called her the "madam" of the "tea girl" Lindiwe Mazibuko, DA leader in Parliament, when he was still leader of the ANC Youth League.

He made the remarks when turning down an invitation to debate with Mazibuko.

DA provincial leader in the Western Cape, Ivan Meyer said: "Helen Zille is here to stay. She's the best premier in the country."