Indian election vote counting live

Live Commentary

7:05am Wednesday Just one seat remains to be declared, in which an INDIA alliance member is currently ahead. Modi’s NDA alliance has won 293 seats, while the INDIA alliance has won 229 and leads in one. While the NDA will retain a majority (272 needed for a majority), the BJP party (240 seats) is well below the majority they easily exceeded in 2019.

10:51pm 115 of the 543 seats have now been officially declared. The NDA leads in or has won 282 seats, while the INDIA alliance leads in or has won 175 seats. The BJP itself leads in or has won 240 seats, which would be 32 short of a majority and 63 down on 2019.

7:45pm The NDA leads in 278 seats to the INDIA alliance’s 173., with the BJP alone leading in 240 seats, well short of the 272 needed for a majority. The Indian electoral commission has declared four seats. In 2019, the BJP alone won 303 seats and its alliance got 353.

5:06pm The NDA now leads in 285 seats to 167 for the INDIA alliance. Modi’s BJP party leads in 243 seats, well short of a majority in its own right.

4:36pm The NDA has slipped back to 273 seats, only barely enough for a majority, while the INDIA alliance leads in 176 seats. All 543 seats now have some counting, so the remaining seats must be going to independents and others not aligned with either alliance. Contrary to polls, this doesn’t look like a Modi landslide.

3:33pm The NDA now leads in 278 seats, to 186 for the INDIA alliance. The seats the NDA now leads in are over the 272 needed for a majority.

2:27pm The NDA is now leading in 242 seats to 144 for the INDIA alliance. Unless late counting reverses the current trends, the NDA will win decisively. I have a one-hour appointment starting at 2:30pm, so I’ll next post after that.

2:11pm BJP and allies (NDA) now leading in 223 seats, to 121 for opposition INDIA alliance.

2:06pm Bloomberg says the BJP and allies are leading in 198 seats, while Congress and allies are leading in 127 seats. 272 seats are needed for a majority.

1:59pm With results in from 339 of the 543 seats, Modi’s BJP is leading in 169 seats, while their main opponents Congress are leading in 65 seats. I’m not sure about allied parties yet.

11:50am I expect official results to appear here from 12:30pm AEST.

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

The Indian election was held in seven stages, from April 19 to June 1. No interim results have been released, with vote counting to occur today. Counting will start at 8am Indian time (12:30pm AEST). The 543 MPs are elected by first past the post. India is the world’s most populous country, having overtaken China in 2023.

The right-wing alliance (NDA) of PM Narendra Modi, who is running for a third successive term, has a high-single to double-digit lead in polls over the opposition INDIA alliance. If the election results reflect the polls, the NDA will win a decisive majority owing to the single-member system. Exit polls released after voting finished Saturday also suggest a big majority for the NDA. Modi is easily the most popular global leader in Morning Consult’s tracker of leaders’ ratings, with 74% approval and 21% disapproval.

Other upcoming elections

The European parliament election will be held from Thursday to Sunday, with vote counting starting once all countries have finished voting. The 720 seats are elected using proportional representation in each EU country. Far-right parties are expected to make gains. I will have a post on this on Sunday.

The UK general election will be held on July 4. The Guardian’s national poll aggregate has Labour on 44.7% (steady since last Thursday), the Conservatives on 23.8% (up 0.5), the far-right Refrom on 11.2% (down 0.1), the Lib Dems on 9.1% (down 0.4) and the Greens on 5.6% (down 0.4). In the last week, there was a jump from a 14 to a 20-point Labour lead in an Opinium poll with other polls little changed.

Update 9:21am Tuesday: Nigel Farage will contest Clacton for Reform, and also becomes Reform’s leader. The JL Partners poll that previously had Labour’s lead at 12 points now has Labour leading by 17 points.

The US general election will be held on November 5. National polls conducted since the May 30 conviction of Donald Trump suggest a small movement to Joe Biden. If this is sustained, Biden should be able to overturn his 1.2% deficit to Trump in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate of national polls and improve his chance to win the Electoral College.

ANC loses majority at South African election

The 400 South African MPs were elected by proportional representation without a threshold. The African National Congress (ANC) had won a majority of votes and seats at every election since the end of apartheid in 1994, but lost their majority at the May 29 election.

The ANC won 40.2% of the vote (down 17.3% since 2019), the centrist Democratic Alliance 21.8% (up 1.0%), former president Jacob Zuma’s left-wing populist MK 14.6% (new) and the communist EFF 9.5% (down 1.3%). The ANC won 159 seats, the DA 87, the MK 58 and the EFF 39. The ANC will need an alliance to get the 201 seats required for a majority.

Mexican left wins second successive landslide

Mexican presidents are elected for six-year terms by FPTP and cannot run for re-election. In 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the left-wing MORENA party won a breakthrough victory for the left with 54.7%, with his nearest opponent on just 22.9%. At Sunday’s election, MORENA’s Claudia Sheinbaum crushed conservative Xóchitl Gálvez by 57.8-29.3 with 10.6% for a third party candidate (results at 5:40pm AEST Monday with 53% reporting). Sheinbaum is a former climate scientist and will be Mexico’s first female president.

Update 9:12am Tuesday: With 93% reporting, Sheinbaum wins by 59.2-27.8 with 10.4% for the third candidate. MORENA also held its majorities in the legislature.