With more than 90 percent of the ballots counted the ANC had about 55 percent of vote, the party’s worst performance since taking power under Nelson Mandela in 1994.
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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”. At that point, the ANC still believed the DA was jumping the gun and hope lingered that the outstanding votes in the metro could swing the ANC’s way.
Earlier on, ANC chief whip, Jackson Mthembu, said South Africans still trusted the ruling party.
Final results were due out later in the day, with the ANC and DA neck-and-neck in both Johannesburg and Pretoria.
The DA has also benefited from an image change, promoting a diverse range of candidates including its first black leader, 36-year-old part-time preacher Mmusi Maimane, who has headed the party since last year.
But this showed the ANC hemorrhaging more votes since the 2011 local elections, when it won about 62 percent versus the DA’s 24 percent, according to Independent Electoral Commission figures. Our focus is on continuing with building better communities in the province, including in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro.
Hailed for liberating the country from Apartheid resulting in independence in 1994, the party has in recent times lurched from crisis to crisis, most linked to its leader Zuma.
On Friday morning, it conceded defeat to the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party in Port Elizabeth, an industrial city that was a key battleground of Wednesday’s election.
He says they are happy to have brought votes for the ANC to under 60%. Scandals swirling around President Jacob Zuma have also hurt the ANC.
African National Congress (ANC) regional structures in Nelson Mandela Bay are digging in their heels and will stick to a decision to lodge a complaint regarding voting irregularities. “I’m not sure if we had got an outright majority, but we will be the biggest party, we will be putting a government together”, he said.
The result will be a reality check for the traditionaly popular ANC ahead of the country´s 2019 general elections.
With solid support in rural areas, the ANC still has majority support across the country, a reflection of its liberation struggle history and the significant improvement in basic living standards for poor South Africans since apartheid.
Underscoring just how far the ANC has fallen is that the DA is the party that today is most associated with the old apartheid government and yet it has remained competitive in the Johannesburg metropolitan area, which includes the storied, all-black township of Soweto, the hub of the black resistance movement in the 60s, 70s and 80s.
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The ANC also faces a challenge from the left, the upstart Economic Freedom Fighters, led by a savvy former ANC youth leader, Julius Malema, who was expelled from Mandela’s party over accusations of “sowing discontent”.
