The ruling African National Congress has narrowly retained its overall majority in the local election results, but its declining support is a sign of growing disillusionment with the former liberation movement and its scandal-plagued leader, President Jacob Zuma.
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With a quarter of the results from South Africa’s local government elections still needing to be revealed, the country’s second-largest political party had already topped its performance in the 2011 elections.
“I voted DA because “m sick of the rotten, corrupt ANC”, said Simpiwe, an unemployed 55-year-old surrounded by shacks in a rundown Nelson Mandela Bay township on the southeast coast, after casting his ballot on Wednesday”.
With 7.05 million, or about 46 percent of the estimate of votes cast nationally in Wednesday’s election counted as of 10:35 a.m. on Thursday, the ANC had 52.3 percent of the total support, followed by the DA with 29.5 percent, according to the commission.
First results are expected on Thursday.
The DA was projected to sweep the major metropolitan areas, which were seen as key battleground states, in an election deemed as a litmus test for the ruling party.
In widely circulated comments earlier this year, Malema said it is “part of the revolutionary duty” to fight back against the government, telling Al-Jazeera that his supporters were willing to “fight physically” against the Zuma government if needed.
“The early results show growth for the DA across the board in South African municipalities, and we are buoyant as we await the newest results that come in”, said James Selfe, Chairperson of DA Federal Council.
Opinion polls see a particularly close race in the capital Pretoria, economic-hub Johannesburg and the symbolic Nelson Mandela Bay municipality named after the anti-apartheid icon.
A record 26.3 million people are registered to vote, but low turnout may be a factor more than two decades after the euphoric 1994 elections that brought Mandela to power.
The DA’s mayoral candidate for the Nelson Mandela Bay metro, Athol Trollip told the media that the election is a “good reminder” that the power is in the hands of the voter and not in the government. “It is not yet clear if we will win an outright majority”. In Johannesburg, the ruling party had 40.5 percent support compared with the DA’s 44.5 percent.
“In the case of Tshwane and Johannesburg the ANC will be the biggest party, but very significantly, it will fall below 50 percent, so we are looking at a major setback for the ANC and we are into an era of coalition politics”.
“Whichever way you look at it, people are saying they are dissatisfied with either Zuma or the way the ANC is dealing with its leadership crisis”, said Abdul Waheed Patel, managing director of Cape Town-based Ethicore Political Consulting.
With 8,213 out of 22,684 voting districts having reported in, the IEC’s election map showed surprising inroads for the DA in the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and even Limpopo. A child watches as a man votes during the voting process in a polling station during municipal elections in Manenberg on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016.
After months of legal wrangling, Zuma was ordered by the country’s Constitutional Court to repay the inflated costs of home improvements at his Nkandla private estate. The currency has since recovered.
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Zuma has said he would repay some of the funds spent on his home and rejected criticism of his conduct.
