“We will not shy away from some weaknesses that have been identified, but will engage communities throughout the province to find speedy and meaningful solutions”, it said in a statement on Saturday.
Advertisement
SOUTH Africa’s long governing African National Congress has been beaten by its opposition and lost capital Pretoria in the local polls. But this is its worst-ever election showing after corruption scandals and a stagnant economy that has frustrated the urban middle class.
In the metro, the DA emerged as the largest party with 46.71 percent of the vote, up from 40.13 percent in 2011.
In his speech, Zuma said the elections had been well run and proved that South Africa’s democracy was maturing. In neighboring Zimbabwe, 92-year-old President Robert Mugabe has kept control since independence in 1980 with disputed elections and crackdowns on dissent.
DA candidate Trollip, a fluent speaker of the local Xhosa language, is likely to become mayor of the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality after his party won 47 percent of the vote against the ANC’s 41 percent, down from 52 percent five years ago.
The ANC before the election said it remained the most powerful political force in the country and pointed to the strides it had made in improving the lives of South Africans.
Mmusi Maimane, whose leadership of the Democratic Alliance (DA) since previous year has helped overturn its image as a party for wealthy whites, called the vote a historic break with the past that could bring the DA into national government in 2019.
South Africa’s ruling party was in a close race early on Saturday in two major cities after losing one other key municipality in its worst electoral performance since the end of apartheid. “Pushing painful structural reforms probably isn’t the first thing that an unpopular government is going to do”, BBH analysts led by Win Thin said in a research note.
The party’s leader, Mmusi Maimane, also has predicted victory in Tshwane.
He added that the idea his party – which has its roots in the anti-apartheid movement and had a white party leader until previous year – was a white one had been “completely shattered”.
The Democratic Alliance angered the ANC last month by declaring that it was the only party that could realise Mr Mandela’s dream of a “prosperous, united and non-racial South Africa”.
Maimane immediately looked ahead to presidential elections.
He also warned that the campaign for the presidency in 2019 “starts now”.
The radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party led by Julius Malema, Zuma’s one-time protege but now arch-foe, came a distant third in the local elections, with about 10 percent of the vote.
As final votes were counted, the ANC was leading in economic powerhouse Johannesburg by a slim margin, but as well as defeat.
Advertisement
With less than 50 percent of the votes, the ANC will have to form a coalition government with opposition parties. 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.
