By noon on Thursday, the ANC privately acknowledged it had lost its dominance in KwaZulu-Natal. At 6pm, it reached out to political parties for a chat about cooperation.

The initial reach-outs were made at the provincial level as word came of a possible toenadering between the ANC, DA and IFP, Daily Maverick reliably learnt. It was styled as being in the interest of stable governance in a possible tandem agreement between KwaZulu-Natal and national governments. But nothing will happen until the ANC National Executive Committee meets.

The outlook in KwaZulu-Natal for the ANC looked dim at noon when the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party was narrowly trumping the ANC, while the IFP had 36.8% of the votes counted and the DA 11.4%. By 7.30pm, that provincial outlook had turned decidedly bleak for the ANC, with 21.27% against MK's 43.4% support from the votes counted, while the IFP stood at 17.9% and the DA at 10.3%.

At these percentages, the ANC will need a three-way agreement to govern KwaZulu-Natal, with the addition of a small party. MK said it would not go into a coalition with the ANC, according to News24. It remains to be seen what, if anything, the party headed by former president Jacob Zuma will offer the IFP.

Word late on Thursday of a possible three-way co-governance deal threw into hard light that the ANC looked...