Election officials start the ballot counting process at a polling station during municipal elections in Manenberg on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016.
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The African National Congress has ruled virtually unopposed since it ended white-minority rule in 1994 with Nelson Mandela at its helm, but has lost support – particularly in cities – among voters who feel their lives have not improved and accuse President Jacob Zuma of mismanaging the economy.
The ANC so far has received around 53% of votes across the country, its lowest percentage ever, with the DA getting 26%.
Defeat in Port Elizabeth was a humiliating blow for the ANC as the municipality is officially known as “Nelson Mandela Bay” in tribute to its past as a hotbed of anti-apartheid activism.
The ANC, led by President Jacob Zuma, lost outright control of the southern city of Port Elizabeth and is set to do the same in the capital, Pretoria, and the economic hub of Johannesburg.
“It’s quite clear that our people, our traditional supporters, are still with us but maybe not too many people came out to vote so we need to go back and find out why”.
“The corroded moral authority of the ANC under Zuma is one of the factors, and his name keeps featuring in major political scandals”.
Following the municipal vote, pressure will intensify on Zuma in the lead-up to party elections late next year, according to Robert Besseling, the executive director of risk advisers EXX Africa.
Deputy President Ramaphosa acknowledged some criticisms of the ANC: “They think that we are arrogant, they think that we are self-centred, they think that we are self-serving, and I’d like to dispute all of that and say we are a listening organization”. The party has its roots in the Progressive Party led by liberal whites who campaigned against apartheid during the era of white rule.
“Now we’ve got to do everything in our power to make sure where we govern we govern well”, said Maimane, who declared that his party had won in Tshwane, well before the final tally.
This leaves the ANC with a tenuous hold on two more major cities where millions of impoverished blacks are now looking beyond its liberation struggle credentials and focusing on weak economic growth and the scandals embroiling Zuma.
A more radical opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, also contested the local elections for the first time.
But neck-and-neck races between the ANC and DA in Johannesburg and Tshwane mean the EFF’s 10 percent share of the vote could be needed for coalitions there.
“The leadership of the ANC is running around like headless chickens”, delighted EFF leader Julius Malema said at a news conference Friday, ditching the party’s revolutionary red uniform for a plaid shirt and jacket.
In December, he rattled investors after changing his finance minister twice in a week, sending the rand plummeting. The Constitutional Court recently said Mr Zuma violated the constitution and instructed him to reimburse the state 507,000 dollars (£386,000).
“It’s bad news for Jacob Zuma”, Mcebisi Ndletyana, a politics professor at the University of Johannesburg, said in an interview.
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Though ANC support remained strong in rural areas where people are more reliant on government services, he said, black voters in cities are increasingly rejecting the party. Mandela was, after all, the leader of the ANC and the country’s first democratically elected president.
