While the ANC had some introspection to do after its poor showing in the elections, Zuma was not the ANC, he said. While the party polled at more than 50 percent nationally, the ANC lost majority control on city councils in Pretoria, the country’s capital, Johannesburg, the country’s economic powerhouse, and Port Elizabeth.
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“The ANC now finds itself holding onto small towns and rural areas, where many residents depend on government services and grants”, said Somadoda Fikeni, a politics professor at the University of South Africa in Pretoria.
Zuma has been plagued by political scandal since taking office seven years ago.
But in the electoral natural disaster that has just shaken South Africa, the ANC has been punished in its urban strongholds.
“Urgent steps must be taken (to) tackle the elephant in the room”.
If political parties cant find each other over these two weeks and form a coalition, then there is an option of forming an minority government where the party with the plurality will sit down and say we are going to be in government and we will go and elect the mayor.
Bathabile Dlamini, President of the ANC women’s league said, “No head of state should be treated like this. It is clear that President Jacob Zuma has become a huge liability”, wrote columnist Onkgopotse Tabane in the Business Day newspaper on Monday.
After the latest election, Cyril Ramaphosa, the deputy president, responded in a way that exemplified the best tradition of the ANC.
“The ANC is in big trouble”, analyst Koffi Kouakou told AFP.
But Zuma, who has thus far survived every curveball thrown his direction, may not be on his way out just yet.
With most of the votes counted, the ANC’s nationwide support has collapsed from 61.9 percent in 2011 to 54 percent in 2016, while support for the largest opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) has grown from 23.9 percent to 27.1 percent. “I’d like to dispute all of that and say we are a listening organisation”.
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In the meantime, “political uncertainty will drive continued policy confusion in the mining, energy, power, private security, and agriculture sectors, while frustrating cost-cutting measures”, said EXX Africa. The central bank expects the economy to stagnate this year and the nation is at risk of having its credit rating downgraded to junk by S&P Global Ratings in December.
