“The ANC is in danger of losing big cities” and has increasingly been falling back on rural support, said Daryl Glaser, an associate professor of politics at Wits University in Johannesburg. “If one is to believe what the polls are detecting, then we are looking at something momentous”.
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In what could’ve been an effort to show that the ANC doesn’t have exclusive rights to any of its former presidents, EFF leader Julius Malema paid a visit to Thabo Mbeki on Monday to ask him to vote for the party and not necessarily for his endorsement of the party. Though many voters remain loyal to the ANC, the balloting may signal growing discontent over yawning inequality, 26 percent unemployment, and a string of high-profile government scandals. “These elections are quite elaborate for the fact that they are municipal elections, taking place in every corner of the country”, the President said.
Opposition gains may also force the ANC to rethink its policies, such as plans to introduce a minimum wage and cut the budget deficit.
The ANC has lost voters to the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters, a relatively new party which appeals to youth.
“I’m voting because I want access to electricity and water and other services”.
“Where does a black man get the nerve to team up with oppressors of his people, even to an extent where he decides to lead them?”
The high proportion of undecided voters in the surveys makes the election hard to call, said Roland Henwood, a politics lecturer at University of Pretoria.
“The ANC has done nothing for me”, she said. “DA support seems to be on the rise”. “It’s crucial for the ANC to retain these areas, because it is the metros that must also be engines for job creation, and economic growth”, Fakir said. The ANC says its own surveys show it retaining control of the main centers, while the DA says the race is neck-and-neck in Tshwane, the municipality that includes Pretoria, and Port Elizabeth. Meanwhile, opposition parties have been making headway, particularly in key urban areas in and around the Gauteng province.
Speaking to the weekly City Press newspaper, Zuma’s predecessor and later his deputy Kgalema Motlanthe said the ANC had “lost its ability to be representative of ordinary people”. “The democratic process is maturing”. The rand has declined 40 percent against the dollar since Zuma took power on May 9, 2009, the most of 16 major currencies monitored by Bloomberg. “Zuma doesn’t make decisions alone so the ANC is not Zuma alone, it’s a collective”.
President Jacob Zuma has criticised the DA for invoking Mandela’s name in their campaigns. “This election is a fresh start for our country”.
The DA’s move has sparked fury among the ANC leadership and supporters. At campaign rally after campaign rally, Mr. Zuma has recalled the battles of the apartheid era, denouncing the rival party as a “poisonous snake” filled with “hatred” of black people.
Dan Raghoonundon, an emerging market analyst and a co-manager of the Janus Emerging Market fund (JMFAX) writes “South Africa has been a one-party country since the fall of apartheid in 1994, with the ANC regularly notching 2/3 majorities in plebiscites over two decades”. “Our country has a brighter future under the ANC”. He thrives in the machinations of internal politics, maintaining his power by appointing his loyalists to key positions in the party ranks – even when he has been besieged by corruption allegations and other controversies.
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The Democratic Alliance, the main opposition to the ANC, with a mostly white liberal base, is expected to win a number of important municipal seats.
