South Africa’s official opposition looks set to win control of one of the country’s most important regions, the Western Cape, bucking the national trend in this week’s general election.

While the African National Congress and its leader, the controversial Jacob Zuma, are on course to register a landslide victory overall, the Democratic Alliance was, with more than half the vote counted, on Friday on course to win in the province that contains Cape Town, the country’s second biggest city, winning 51.4 per cent of the vote to the ANC’s 31.3 per cent.