South African President Thabo Mbeki declared Friday that his ruling African National Congress (ANC) has won "overwhelming" victory in the third non-racial elections held across the country on April 14.

The 62-year-old president made the statement while touring the National Results Operations Center in Pretoria.

He said: "the ANC has got the overwhelming support of the SouthAfrican people."

"We will do whatever we have promised to the people during the elections and we will not disappoint their expectation," he said.

Describing the election as free and fair, Mbeki reiterated that his party did not seek a two-thirds majority to change the constitution.

He assured that his government would unite with the people to change the country for the better.

According to the latest vote counting results, ANC has won 70 percent of votes declared among 96 districts of the country.

The Democratic Alliance came in second with 13 percent of the total votes counted up to 13:00 (1100 GMT) on Friday.

He that the ANC was open to enter into a coalition government in hotly-contested KwaZulu-Natal province for the sake of peace, stability and nation-building.

However, he added, the form of the coalition government would depend on the total number of votes political parties in the province would have obtained by final count.

"We want to look at the final figure in KwaZulu-Natal and I hope that by later today that will be clear. We will then discuss the matter after," Mbeki told reporters at the Independent Electoral Office in Pretoria.

KwaZulu-Natal is a hotly contested province in the country with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and Democratic Alliance (DA) forming a coalition to govern in that province.

Political analyst Dirk Kotze said the coalition between the IFPand the DA would certainly not continue after the final vote has been counted because the ANC won 46 percent of the total votes in the province while IFP got only 38 percent and DA 8 percent.

Meanwhile, several opposition parties have expressed their satisfaction with the elections, saying the elections were fair, free and efficient.

Mbeki is a front-runner among 8,000 candidates from 37 political parties contesting across the country for more than 800 national and provincial parliament seats.

Source: Xinhua