According to opinion polls, the historic ANC liberation movement – which led the country out of the 46-year apartheid era in 1994 with Mandela at the helm – could lose its majority in several key cities, including the capital, Pretoria, the economic metropole Johannesburg and the vehicle manufacturing hub Port Elizabeth.
Advertisement
Regardless, many black South Africans remain loyal to the ANC, crediting the former liberation movement for improving their lives, since it led the transition to democracy more than two decades ago. But Zuma has been weakened by a series of corruption scandals, court cases and poor economic data. It was contesting the local elections for the first time.
More than 20 years since the end of apartheid, South Africa continues to deal with issues it inherited from the previous regime.
Many queuing in the winter cold said they were anxious about President Jacob Zuma’s performance and the state of Africa’s most industrialised economy, where one in four is unemployed the central bank expects zero growth this year. The other seven are ANC-run. 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. Currently, only one of these eight – Cape Town – is governed by the DA.
“Municipal elections are expected to be a bellwether for South Africa’s political landscape”, Manji Cheto, senior vice president at consulting firm Teneo Intelligence, said in a note. “A lot of things have changed in this country since 1994”. They tell me that there was too much sacrifice under apartheid and although they are angry with their ANC, they are unwilling to openly support the Democratic Alliance, which they still see as a white party. “The ANC has drifted from our original democratic project”.
The DA also faces stark opposition by the EFF, which is driven by a far more aggressive policy of black empowerment than any of the other major parties. Its firebrand leader, former head of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) and Jacob Zuma’s erstwhile protégé, Julius Malema, advocates land reform following the model practiced in Zimbabwe, where thousands of white farmers have been driven from their lands into poverty.
Polls open at 7am South African time until 7pm and the first results are expected early on Thursday morning. Official unemployment remains at more than one in four, according to the statistics office, while ratings agency Fitch has downgraded the country’s local debt, stoking feats of a long-standing fears of a sovereign downgrade. Most of the violence occurred in KwaZulu-Natal Province as well as in the capital Pretoria.
Its next major test comes in national elections in 2019. An independent opinion poll by Ipsos agreed that the ANC is likely to stay in place in Pretoria and Johannesburg despite growing opposition; however, it did predict that it would lose Port Elizabeth.
Advertisement
If the ANC performs badly on Wednesday, it may put pressure on Zuma to step down before his term officially ends in 2019.
