The champagne on ice was the coolest thing in the room where diplomats‚ business leaders and local politicians gathered at the Taj Cape Town hotel to witness a tense climax to the US elections.

Nearly 200 people squeezed into the hotel conference room‚ decked out with US flags‚ blue and red balloons‚ and enough pomp to match the occasion‚ from around 4am to find out who would become the next president of the United States.

Emotions ran high as results trickled through on big screens set up throughout the hall and nobody was willing to make an outright prediction. In a mock pole set up at the venue‚ people voted overwhelmingly for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. But the mood turned to one of disbelief as the real results showed Republican Donald Trump taking the lead.

American citizen Patricia Carter‚ who moved to Cape Town last year‚ said she was already receiving enquiries from friends back home on how to emigrate to South Africa

Amongst the crowd were Western Cape provincial MEC for tourism Alan Winde and Cape Town Mayor Patricia De Lille.

De Lille said that she was surprised by this year’s political season and was hoping for a victory for the Democratic Party.                               “A Donald Trump win would be a victory for right-wing‚ racist politics that wouldn’t bode well for the world‚” she said.

“Clinton is a very seasoned politician and it’s public knowledge that she’s a friend of South Africa‚” said De Lille. – TMG Digital