Watch: Votes counted as South Africa’s election gets underway

Watch as vote counting got underway in South Africa’s election on Thursday, 30 May.

Residents were casting their votes at schools, community centres and in large white tents set up in open fields in an election seen as the country’s most important in 30 years.

It was the seventh election since apartheid.

The African National Congress (ANC) party, which led South Africa out of apartheid’s white minority rule in 1994, came to power thirty years ago.

It has won national elections held every five years since the 1994 election, but support has declined due to disillusionment over issues such as high unemployment and crime, frequent power blackouts and corruption.

South Africa’s electoral commission has seven days to declare full results by law, but in practice it is usually faster than that.

A new parliament must convene within 14 days of final results being anounced.

Its first act will be to elect the country’s president.