South Africa’s ruling party has suffered its biggest election setback since taking power at the end of apartheid a generation ago, with results from two of the country’s largest cities still uncertain Saturday with less than 1 percent of votes left to be counted. But the leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, Mmusi Maimane, told reporters that his party had won Tshwane, beating the African National Congress, formerly the main anti-apartheid movement.
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Teffo and the University of Johannesburg’s Professor Tinyiko Maluleke said although coalition governments were complex and hard to manage, the ANC, Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) had no choice but to co-govern some of the metros and key municipalities. It has now lost two, including Nelson Mandela Bay, named after the country’s first black president and former ANC leader.
The Democratic Alliance, led by Mr Mmusi Maimane, topped the poll in the capital Pretoria, winning 93 of the 214 seats.
Reuters says, “Unemployment, a stagnating economy and scandals around President Jacob Zuma led voters to punish the ANC, changing the outlook for national elections in 2019 and potentially emboldening Zuma’s rivals within the ANC to challenge him”.
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The ANC before the election said it remained the most powerful political force in the country and pointed to the strides it had made in improving the lives of South Africans. As we reported, the Constitutional Court recently disagreed and said “the visitors’ center, amphitheater, cattle kraal, chicken run and swimming pool at the Zuma residence, Nkandla, do not have a security rationale”.
It blamed a “narrow focus on internal factional battles, the corruption scandals and the growing distance from the people” for eroding the party’s high moral ground and weakening its political capacity to play “its historical role of leading society”.
It won in Tshwane and in another major municipality, Nelson Mandela Bay.
In a statement Friday, the ANC said “we will reflect and introspect where our support has dropped”.
At the last general election in 2014, the ANC took more than 60% of the vote.
“This is a tipping point for the people of South Africa”, he said.
Clearly the ANC still commands huge support across the country but that support is waning.
South Africa’s economy has failed to get back on track since being hit by the 2008 global financial crisis.
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It relinquished an outright majority in the capital, Pretoria, the industrial hub Ekurhuleni and the southern city of Port Elizabeth, final results for these areas showed.
