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Pretoria – Support for the Democratic Alliance was expected to increase by about a million votes in the 2014 national elections, the party’s campaign manager Jonathan Moakes said on Friday.

“We got 16.7% in 2009 – we are probably on track to get just over 22%, so I think it is an increase of about a third,” he said.

“In absolute numbers we are probably going to increase by approximately a million votes.”

He said going into the fifth national democratic elections the party aimed for significant growth in all nine provinces.

In the 2009 elections, the DA received 16.66% of votes, while it received 12.37% of the votes in the 2004 elections. Support for the party may increase by five percent.

The DA was satisfied with what they achieved in the elections, he said.

“I think there are some good results. Within our expectations we are pretty happy,” Moakes said.

He said the growth was attributed to a good campaign and communicating with the electorate.

Parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko was excited with the prospect of the party being the official opposition in KwaZulu-Natal.

“I can’t tell you how excited I am with the DA being the opposition in KwaZulu-Natal. It means my leader Sizwe Mchunu will be the opposition leader. It is my home province,” she said.

Mazibuko said despite their gains, work still remained to grow more and put pressure on the African National Congress.

According to early results, the DA had 22.01% of the votes with 3 694 392 votes nationally after 95.37% of votes had been counted.- SAPA