The opposition Democratic Alliance party edged out the African National Congress (ANC) in Tshwane, with 43 per cent to 41 per cent of the vote on Saturday; increasing the possibility of a coalition government.
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DA mayoral candidate Athol Trollip said on Saturday that talks were taking place at national level to form coalitions in Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane and, potentially, in Johannesburg.
The ANC and DA are now neck and neck in the race to secure control over Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city.
The ANC has also lost its first major black-majority municipality in this election, Nelson Mandela Bay, named after the ANC’s star and the country’s first black president.
Mmusi Maimane, the Soweto-born former preacher who leads the DA, said this year’s local election would be “seen as a tipping point; the moment the ANC lost its foothold as a dominant party”.
The area was won by the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) which had its roots as the anti-apartheid party of white liberals.
The DA already runs Cape Town, which is the country’s only major city where black people are not in the majority.
Teffo and the University of Johannesburg’s Professor Tinyiko Maluleke said although coalition governments were complex and hard to manage, the ANC, Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) had no choice but to co-govern some of the metros and key municipalities.
South Africa’s ruling ANC has defeated the opposition Democratic Alliance in the Johannesburg municipality election.
Overall, the ANC won 54 percent of the vote, while the DA won 27 percent and the radical Economics Freedom Fighters party, contesting local electionsn for the first time, won 8 percent of the vote.
Let me explain. South Africa has many very serious problems, from unemployment that is chronically over 20 percent, to endemic corruption, to a recent spate of political assassinations.
Mmusi Maimane, was the first black leader in the a year ago elected for continued efforts to create its image mainly serves white interests. He said the idea that his party was a white one has been “completely shattered”.
ANC deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa told reporters Friday that the organization would “do an introspective look at ourselves”, The New York Times reported. He said: “The 2019 campaign starts now”.
The South African economy has stagnated since 2008’s global financial crisis, and the country has one of the highest rates of economic inequality in the world.
Zuma, 74, who was jailed on Robben Island with Mandela during apartheid, retains deep loyalty within the ANC and in many rural areas, but he could step down before his term ends in 2019.
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Zuma survived an impeachment vote in April after the Constitutional Court said he breached the law by ignoring an order to repay some of $16 million in state funds spent on renovating his private home.
