The African National Congress yesterday celebrated its victory in South Africa's second democratic election even before the final results has been counted and certified as correct by the Independent Electoral Commission. But its celebration was not resented or described as premature: its lead was so big and its dominance so complete that none of its opponents felt compelled to challenge it for being presumptuous.
With more than half the votes counted late last night, the ANC had won just under 66 per cent of the votes cast. The chances were high its final victory would be by a two-thirds majority and that it would be in a position to alter unilaterally most clauses of the constitution.
But during the election campaign, the ANC president, Mr Thabo Mbeki - who will be inaugurated as South Africa's second democratically elected president on June 16th - repeatedly denied that he wanted a two-thirds majority to change the constitution. He had no plans to modify, let alone rescind, any of the fundamentals of the constitution, he assured the electorate.
In his victory speech, Mr Mbeki did not indulge in triumphalism. Instead, he committed the ANC to wielding the power entrusted to it by the people with humility and responsibility. The ANC would seek to fulfil a dream spelt out nearly 45 years ago in the Freedom Charter: it would seek to build a South Africa which belonged to all the people, black and white.
Lying in second place - a long way behind the ANC - was the Democratic Party (DP) with 9.8 per cent of the votes cast so far. While a modest performance by most yardsticks, it was an impressive improvement on the less than 2 per cent the party won in the 1994 election. Most of the gains were made at the expense of the New National Party (NNP), as the once mighty National Party has renamed itself.
The NNP was in fourth position with barely more than 7 per cent of the vote, a result which its leader, Mr Martinus van Schalkwyk, described - in an understatement - as disappointing.
Edging in between Mr Tony Leon's Democratic Party and the NNP was Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party, with slightly more than 8 per cent of the vote. Political analysts predicted that the IFP would overhaul the DP to win for itself the status of the second-biggest party when the final results were in.
Most of the outstanding results were due from rural areas, including those in KwaZulu-Natal where the IFP rules supreme.
As a prospective coalition partner with the ANC, an IFP victory over the Democratic Party in the race for the position as the second-biggest party would emphatically restate the preponderance of the ANC-IFP axis and make it virtually impossible to defeat short of a falling-out between the parties.
Given the warm relations between Mr Mbeki and Chief Buthelezi - one which may result in Mr Mbeki offering the Zulu leader the post of deputy president - that seems unlikely for the immediate future.
Reuters adds: The first result came from the former Robben Island jail of President Mandela, where inhabitants gave a resounding vote to his ANC.
The island off Cape Town, where Mr Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in jail, is now a museum.
The result gave the ANC 56 votes from the museum staff, the NNP 13 and the Democratic Party three.