With the ruling African National Congress (ANC) having won South Africa’s fifth democratic general election on May 7 by a decisive majority, focus shifted on Friday to the country’s future direction.

Results at noon on Friday, with 98 percent counted, showed the ANC with 62.26 percent of the vote, down from 65.9 percent in the 2009 election. The official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) stood at 22.17 percent, up from 16.67 percent in 2009. In South Africa’s most competitive election in the 20 years since the fall of apartheid, the newly formed Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) was lying third with 6.21 percent.

Analysts attributed the ANC’s continued success to its role in liberating South Africans from apartheid and its record in improving the living conditions of millions.

Key signals about where the country is headed will emerge when President Jacob Zuma, having secured a second five-year term, announces his new Cabinet after his May 24 inauguration.

Anthony Butler, professor of politics at the University of Cape Town, said the most likely changes in emphasis follow from Zuma’s stated intention to place the National Development Plan (NDP) at the center of government activity.

According to Butler, this will require a further centralization of power in the South African Presidency in order to curtail the present autonomy of Cabinet ministers and directors-general.

Butler predicted that Zuma, who increased the size of the South African Cabinet to 34 members in 2009, may reduce that number as his priority shifts from maintaining political support to more emphasis on improved government effectiveness.

Apart from size considerations, it is also likely that Zuma will choose a new deputy president to replace Kgalema Motlanthe, who is expected to retire. Frontrunner, although not a certainty, is ANC Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. In South Africa, Cabinet appointments are the sole prerogative of the country’s president.

South Africa’s Minister of Public Enterprises Malusi Gigaba confirmed the importance of the NDP: “We need to ensure continuity of our economic policy and program and we must embed the National Development Plan in the work of government in the next five years.”

Gigaba said this would require all South African national Cabinet ministers, provincial premiers and members of provincial executive councils to “pursue the same agenda.”

Although the ruling ANC adopted the NDP at a national conference in December 2012, the 444-page document has remained contentious. The NDP had been criticized by the ANC’s unionist allies and opponents on the left as being too pro-capitalist.

In its election manifesto the ANC said it would use the NDP to eradicate poverty, increase employment and reduce inequality by 2030. Prior to the elections, there had been predictions that the ANC would be adversely affected by problems within its governing alliance partner, COSATU.

Following the ANC’s success, Steven Friedman, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Johannesburg, said the vaunted organizing power of COSATU with its more than 2 million members had proved to be “not so important after all.” The ANC had succeeded without COSATU organizers.