As the final results of Wednesday’s elections were announced Saturday night, it was clear that the ANC, the party of Nelson Mandela, had suffered steep declines in support in almost all of South Africa’s major urban areas, where middle-class black voters punished a party that is now known as much for its culture of corruption as for its heroic liberation past.
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With no party reaching a majority in Johannesburg or Tshwane, the possible formation of coalition governments was the next challenge ahead. The opposition Democratic Alliance, which has roots in the anti-apartheid movement and was white-led until a year ago, has predicted victory in Tshwane.
Final results are expected to be announced later on Saturday, with Johannesburg and Tshwane too close to call.
The results have reshaped the political landscape in South Africa where the ANC has ruled virtually unopposed since it ended white-minority rule in 1994, led by Nelson Mandela.
Leader of the official opposition Democratic Alliance Mmusi Maimane talks to the press at the election results center in Pretoria, South Africa, Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016. The ANC was leading the Democratic Alliance there, 43 percent to 39 percent.
Mr Zuma’s office said he would attend the announcement of the final election results.
These local elections were seen as a referendum on President Jacob Zuma, who has been mired in several corruption scandals over the past decade.
“Foreign investors will probably welcome the fact that reduced support for the ruling ANC has helped the centrist DA rather than the leftist EFF”, said John Ashbourne, Africa analyst at Capital Economics, in a note. The country’s main opposition party would have to form a coalition with another party in order to govern fully in Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay. It has been pushing hard to win supporters in other regions, saying its brand is good governance. He said the idea that his party was a white one has been “completely shattered”.
The Democratic Alliance angered the ANC last month by declaring that it was the only party that could realize Mandela’s dream of a “prosperous, united and non-racial South Africa”. “The 2019 campaign starts now”, he said. The Democratic Alliance got nearly 27 percent while the distant third-placed Economic Freedom Fighters’ party had 8.2 percent.
The provincial executive committee of the African National Congress chapter in Gauteng said in a statement April 12, “Our president, comrade Jacob Zuma, should reflect deeply and do the right thing to resolve the unprecedented crisis that the ANC now faces”.
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It has, however, won some support from voters frustrated about inequality in a country where black people make up about 80 percent of the 54 million population, yet most land and companies remain in the hands of whites, who account for about 8 percent of the population. The highest court ruled in March that he violated the constitution by refusing to repay taxpayer funds used to upgrade his private home.
