Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, seated, and African National Congress party members discuss municipal election results at the results center in Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, August 5, 2016.
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Its leader said it would now seek to form a majority coalition in Tshwane, the municipality covering Pretoria, with the Economic Freedom Fighters, the radical party of expelled ANC youth leader Julius Malema, which won 11 per cent.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) took Johannesburg with 44.55 percent of the votes, final results showed on Saturday.
But losing 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.
Since South Africa’s first all-race election in 1994, the ANC has had widespread support on the strength of its successful fight against white-minority rule, while bringing basic amenities to many people.
The party also needs to hold and attract the support of urban voters, who are mostly young and educated and seem to be gravitating towards the DA.
The ANC has lost its grip on the major cities where millions of black people are now looking beyond its liberation struggle credentials and focusing on weak growth prospects for an economy teetering on the edge of a recession. Even so, the results for the ANC could put pressure on 74-year-old Zuma to leave office before his mandate ends in 2019.
“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”, he added.
This video includes an image from Getty Images and clips from Democratic National Committee, Republican National Committee, BBC, CCTV, CCTV Africa, France 24, Democratic Alliance South Africa.
Many South Africans who queued up to vote across the country said they were anxious about Zuma’s performance and the state of the economy, where one in four in the labour force is unemployed. But having failed to secure an outright majority, ANC officials said they had started talks with smaller parties about forming a coalition municipal government.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane, who a year ago became the party’s first black president, hailed his party’s “incredible growth” before ruling out a coalition with the ANC in Port Elizabeth.
“We can’t blame President Zuma”, ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa said.
Scandals swirling around Zuma have also hurt the ANC. Opposition groups have seized on the revelation that the state paid more than $20 million for upgrades to Zuma’s private home.
In December, he rattled investors after changing his finance minister twice in a week, sending the rand plummeting.
The long-governing ANC edged out the main opposition party, Democratic Alliance, by 6 percentage points in Johannesburg, the commercial capital, despite a plunge in support in the city.
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South Africa’s ruling ANC party seems on track for its worst electoral performance in two decades at the helm. That’s who we are. 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”.
