South Africa’s African National Congress led early results from the Nov. 4 municipal elections with about 32% of votes counted, narrowly ahead of the Democratic Alliance at 30%. The tally, based on roughly 12% of votes counted by 0412 GMT, remained preliminary and was not representative of the national result because only a small proportion of districts had reported in populous Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. The ANC was widely expected to lose ground as voters responded to high crime rates, corruption scandals and failures in basic services including water and electricity.