Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 2, 1994                   TAG: 9405020047
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News
DATELINE: JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA                                LENGTH: Medium

ANC SAYS IT HAS WON `BIG VICTORY'

After ANC spokesman Pallo Jordan announced that the party's internal count indicated the ANC would receive at least 58 percent of the vote, party leaders and hundreds of activists celebrated at a huge victory party Sunday night.

"We are headed for a big victory, at least 58 percent and possibly 60 percent or more," said Jordan.

At the party, a choir sang freedom songs and men and women hugged each other as television monitors broadcast updated election returns.

Independent Electoral Commission figures, based on partial returns, showed the ANC with more than 54 percent of the vote. Second place went to the National Party, led by President F.W. de Klerk, with about 33 percent.

The official count was proceeding slowly amid angry charges of incompetence and fraud lodged by opposition party leaders. The slow count is jeopardizing the transition of power, which calls for the new parliament to officially designate the new president Friday.

The ANC's figures projected a landslide victory for the party in its first electoral contest. But it seemed unlikely Nelson Mandela's party would attain the two-thirds majority needed to give it the power to write the country's constitution without seeking parliamentary support from other parties.

In an interview, Mandela indicated that he wants to form a coalition government that would include the outgoing president, de Klerk, as well as Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the Inkatha Freedom Party, and Gen. Constand Viljoen, of the right-wing Freedom Front.