A woman casts her vote at a polling station in Atteridgeville, Pretoria, South Africa, Wednesday Aug. 3, 2016.
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The ruling African National Congress (ANC), formerly the main anti-apartheid movement, has dominated South African politics since the first all-race elections in 1994.
The ANC was the vehicle that helped Nelson Mandela end apartheid in South Africa.
This could be changing, however.
With 82 percent of votes counted as of midday Thursday, the opposition Democratic Alliance led the way in each of the three cities, though its national support averaged just above 27 percent.
Should the ANC lose big on Wednesday, we could be witnessing the start of a trend that will reverberate all the way to general elections in 2019.
Reacting to the early results, political analyst, Sanusha Naidoo said voters have shown that they do not want complacency from political parties. The outcomes will crucially highlight the current status of voter support for the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The ruling party garnered 44 per cent.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which is led by firebrand Julius Malema, Zuma’s one-time protege and former ANC youth leader is participating in only its second election and was running a distant third in the national count.
“The ANC will win”, said Stonie Sizani, a 62 year old civil servant and lifetime ANC supporter in the region’s main city Port Elizabeth. Final results are expected by Friday.
There were some technical hiccups at scattered stations, mainly to do with too few or faulty scanners, and an apparent lack of ballot papers in one case. “Zuma doesn’t make decisions alone so the ANC is not Zuma alone, it’s a collective”, he said.
Zuma has rejected the accusations, saying he is fit to lead, and the ANC party has backed its president.
In Cape Town the DA won a landslide victory, winning more than 70 per cent of the vote, with the ANC receiving less than 20 per cent of the vote and the EFF showing a poor performance.
He said now he wanted a flag to represent the coloured people, which he would put over his heart; one he imagined would show someone “sleeping after lunch or holding up a gun”.
If this happens, it would be a major blow to the ANC’s prestige, putting greater pressure on the party’s insiders to challenge Mr. Zuma’s leadership.
The DA said it was “buoyant” about the growth in support across the country.
The polls come barely a month after the South African treasury ordered Zuma to pay back 7.8 million rand ($509,000) for non-security upgrades made on his private home during renovations funded by the state.
According to preliminary results released by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) Thursday morning, the ANC has won 21 councils, securing 1,038 seats with six million votes.
Its MPs’ spirited protests against Mr Zuma in parliament, the broadening of its leftist policy agenda and the perception in some quarters that the Democratic Alliance is a party for whites has seen it attract a growing number of middle-class black South Africans.
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In December, respect plummeted for Zuma after he fired Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene, replacing him with a little-known member of parliament, then recruited Pravin Gordhan for the job.
