With nearly 36% of the vote counted at 9 p.m. local time, the ANC had only 42% of votes, well short of the more than 50% it needs to control the 400-member National Assembly, which chooses the president. At stake is whether incumbent President Cyril Ramaphosa, a millionaire business magnate, will have a second term.

Voters in Wednesday’s poll said they were fed up with persistent daily power cuts, failure to deliver public services, violent crime and corruption.

Who are possible coalition partners?

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has received a quarter of votes so far. Its led by John Steenhuisen is South Africa’s second-largest party and has gathered 10 smaller parties into an alliance called the Multi-Party Charter for South Africa. The DA runs Cape Town, rated as South Africa’s best-run metropolitan area by think tank Good Governance Africa, but has struggled to shake its image as an elite party of White liberals after some Black DA leaders quit to form their own parties. Steenhuisen says he would enter an alliance with the ANC to avoid the “doomsday scenario” of an ANC coalition with more radical parties.

Populist Julius Malema, noted for his flashy lifestyle and red berets, was the ANC’s former Youth League chairman before he was suspended in 2011. He founded the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), railing against “White capital” and advocating nationalizing gold and platinum mines and White-owned farms. The EFF has received nearly 10% of votes so far.

There are also a number of smaller possible partners: 70 political parties and 11 independents are contesting the election. If the ANC seeks to cobble together a coalition of all the smaller parties, they would need almost all of them.

Earlier this month, a court ruled that a conviction disqualified former president Jacob Zuma from standing again for the presidency. But his uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party founded last year still commands support, especially in his strongly Zulu home province of KwaZulu-Natal, where preliminary results showed him hammering the ANC.

His 15-month jail sentence for contempt of court in 2021 — because he refused to give evidence to a corruption inquiry — sparked deadly riots there and an orgy of looting. Some of his supporters are under investigation for corruption.

So far, MK has received nearly 10% of the vote, pushing it into third place. If the ANC relies on Zuma to form a coalition government, he may insist on immunity for himself and his associates.

Why has the ANC been losing support?

The ANC swept into power in 1994 as liberators promising to right the wrongs of apartheid, when the White-led government impoverished, brutalized and killed Black citizens. In the first decade of its rule, the ANC built vast swaths of subsidized housing for poor families and poured money into social spending. A progressive constitution in 1997 enshrined human rights, accountability and equality.

But creeping cronyism eventually hollowed out government, culminating with widespread corruption under the presidency of Jacob Zuma. Law enforcement agents and investigators trying to halt the looting were sidelined, forced out or killed, and state assets were transferred to private hands.

“The ANC is so corrupted that if a party goes into a coalition with them it could destroy that party,” said William Gumede, who chaired negotiations leading to an alliance among 11 opposition parties vowing to oppose the ANC. Polls put the ANC at between 38 and 46 percent, and the opposition coalition between 34 and 38 percent.

Why are these elections a potential turning point?

It’s likely that the ANC will need to form a coalition for the first time. Its best bet is an alliance with the plethora of small parties, which would dilute the influence of any one of them and leave real power concentrated in the hand of the ANC.

But if its support slips to around 40 percent, this could force Ramaphosa out, cutting short his second term as president and ending his leadership of the ANC. The constitution allows Parliament only two weeks to form a coalition.

“We are becoming a country instead of a post-liberation miracle,” said author and political commentator Justice Malala. “We are no longer prisoners of the past. We are having a conversation about policies and what’s delivering for people right now. I think it’s great — the country is normalizing.”

Lesley Wroughton in Johannesburg contributed to this report.