WHILE it is headed for victory in the local government elections, the African National Congress (ANC) is facing its sternest test in post-independence South Africa as opposition parties eat into its stake.
Advertisement
The DA has continued to lead the pack since the start of the vote counting and the party is now at 44.37% while the ANC is neck-and-neck with 41.21%.
The election losses have threatened two decades of dominance by the ANC, the former anti-apartheid movement.
PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa (Reuters) – On the surface, white South African ex-farmer Athol Trollip seems an unlikely candidate for mayor of a metropolitan district named after the ANC’s great liberation hero, Nelson Mandela.
The election also represents a political renaissance for the DA, which past year elected its first black leader, Mmusi Maimane, as part of its efforts to shake off its image as a party that mainly serves white interests.
The showings have prompted speculation over their long-term impact on President Jacob Zuma.
Kodwa says votes for the ANC reached the 10 million mark and the party does not take that for granted.
The EFF, which won six percent of the national vote in 2014, advocates land redistribution without compensation and the nationalisation of mines. The opposition beat us because our supporters didn’t come out to vote for us. Voters are expressing discontent over the country’s unemployment rate and recent corruption scandals.
Problems providing such basics trigger regular and sometimes violent “service delivery” protests in South Africa, where harsh socio-economic divisions remain a grim legacy of the apartheid era.
FF Plus MP Pieter Groenewald told ANC Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa that a coalition between the two parties would not work because the ANC was a “scorpion”.
“Clearly our people are sending out messages all around, we are going to listen very, very carefully. I hope they don’t let us down”.
At the time of going to press and vote-counting underway, the chances of ANC holding onto Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub, and the capital Pretoria were under huge threat.
The election was widely seen as a referendum on Zuma, who has been plagued by a series of scandals and court cases since taking office in 2009. Mandela was, after all, the leader of the ANC and the country’s first democratically elected president.
“It says the democratic process is working”, he said Friday. It retained support in many rural areas in a country where blacks make up 80 percent of the population.
“A battle in the party could emerge from these poor results and ANC would have to find a dignified exit strategy for Zuma”, independent political analyst Daniel Silke told AFP.
Advertisement
Poor economic stewardship added to voter dissatisfaction, Silke added. The DA may need to negotiate coalitions with the EFF in order to assure control over urban areas where they have a slender lead over the ANC.
