The voting process which will end with the election of the leader of South Africa's ruling African National Congress party has ended on Tuesday and its results are expected to be released after 11 a.m. EST, a senior ANC official said.

Approximately 3,900 party delegates were more passive in the conference hall in Polokwane as two days of harsh debate and cheering ended so the voting can begin, the Cape Town Cape Argus informed.

Items such as message-bearing T-shirts, placards and banners were forbidden as delegates lined up in a heavy rain to cast ballots for the six party positions.

"The electoral commission is busy counting at the moment. The results will be known after six p.m. (11 a.m. EST) today," African National Congress Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe said in his statement held during a post-elections news conference.

The delegates also made their choice regarding five other ANC leadership positions.

Jacob Zuma, the deputy leader of ANC, is the strong favorite to triumph over South African President Thabo Mbeki as party chief in the vote.  The election process was postponed by two days of internal strife between supporters of the two rivals at a party congress.

The staff responsible with the counting of the votes said the counting will be made manually and therefore the process might take some time.

If Zuma wins the top spot in the principal ANC party, he is almost certain to become president when Mbeki stands down in 2009.

Both candidates are 65. Mbeki was hand-picked by Nelson Mandela to lead the party, while Zuma is regarded as a populist due to his past. He grew up in poverty and was illiterate until his adolescence.

The African National Congress, which defines itself as a "disciplined force of the left", has been South Africa's governing party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), since the establishment of majority rule in May 1994.