The real race between parties taking part in South Africa's fourth democratic election, is for second place, a political analyst said on Wednesday.

"The real race here is for second place... and that race is going to be closely contested," said University of Johannesburg's Professor Adam Habib of the contest between the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the fledgling Congress of the People (Cope).

With the emergence of Cope, a breakaway from the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the opportunity for an alternative platform was created, as the party had a "fundamentally different image" from that of the DA.

Speaking on the election process, Habib said hiccups were expected with over 23-million people registered to vote.

"Some hiccups and some criminal acts can be expected not just here, but it's the same with elections across the world."

He added that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and the police were dealing with the problems "as quickly as possible".

Habib said he did not expect anything which would "delegitimise" the election.

"There is no fear of that happening here. I can't imagine anything that would delegitimise this election, not even in provinces like KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape."

He described the high voter turnout, which had led to shortages of ballot papers and voting boxes in various provinces, as "fantastic".

"I expect the numbers to reflect a record turnout," he said.

The country's fourth democratic election was given a boost by an increase in youth participation in politics, he said.

"The youth were largely spurred by the [US President Barack] Obama factor in my view," he said.

Another factor which differentiated this election from the three previous ones was the manner in which the emergence of Cope had "activated" the ANC.