Patricia de Lille next mayor of Cape Town

Patricia de Lille will be the next mayor of Cape Town, the IEC announced this evening as the final count dragged on.

Courtney Sampson, the chief electoral officer in the Western Cape, told a news conference he had the ANC's permission to confirm that De Lille and the DA had won the election in the Cape Town metro.

He said the final result would be released by email later tonight, but that provisional results showed the DA had won more than 60 percent of the Cape Town vote.

The provisional result indicated a 20 percent jump - 10 percentage points - from the combined result of the DA and De Lille's Independent Democrats in 2006

Speaking to the last few reporters and IEC staff still at the results centre in Bellville, De Lille said she was humbled by the victory.

'I pledge that I will always put the people of Cape Town first," she said in a brief statement.

Sampson said the final result had been delayed because an official had failed to hand in the results slip for several wards in the Khayelitsha and Gugulethu townships.

He said police were investigating the disappearance of the documents and the IEC was likely to implement internal disciplinary measures against the official concerned, but he said he was confident it had been a case of "gross negligence" and not an attempt to sabotage the results.