On Wednesday, voters cast ballots for the national Parliament and for legislatures in nine provinces in the sixth general election after the end of apartheid. But an increasing number of South Africans simply stayed home instead of handing their support to another party. The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, suffered a dip in support compared with its performance in 2014. The Economic Freedom Fighters, a party established in 2013, grew less than expected.

“A lot of people have simply given up on the parties, their leaders and democratic institutions,” said William Gumede, a political scientist at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. “With no economic growth, this is a dangerous situation South Africa is in.”

As the results came in, party officials began positioning themselves for the postelection battles.

Fikile Mbalula, a Ramaphosa ally who was head of the A.N.C.’s election campaign, told reporters that the president had saved the party. Without Mr. Ramaphosa, he said, the party’s share of the vote “would have probably dropped to 40 percent.”

But Ace Magashule, the party’s secretary general and the leader of the rival faction, responded: “That’s nonsense. People are electing the A.N.C. It’s not about any individual.”

At the same news conference, Mr. Magashule, who is the former leader of a province where corruption flourished under his watch and who is close to Mr. Zuma, said that the former president had been important in getting votes in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal. There, support for the African National Congress dropped by about 10 percent compared with five years ago.