According to analysts, these local elections were being seen as an indication of the mid-term popularity of President Jacob Zuma, the BBC said.
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Up to this point, the ANC has basically been counting on historic support from blacks all over South Africa to win elections, but that support continues to disappear.
Final results are due on Saturday.
South Africans have shocked the African National Congress (ANC) in local council elections by handing significant gains to the opposition, but it is clear from the low turnout in crucial areas that the outcome is less about voting for the Democratic Alliance (DA) than taking a stand against the ruling party.
“The projections that I give most credence to is that the DA will be the biggest single party in Nelson Mandela Bay but won’t get 50%”, Daryl Glaser, a lecturer in political studies department at the University of the Witwatersrand, told Reuters.
IRR CEO Dr Frans Cronje said, “The results are devastating for the ANC and we expect that opposition parties will redouble their efforts to undermine the party on issues ranging from corruption to Jacob Zuma and South Africa’s weak economic performance”.
“We are into an era of coalition politics”.
The ANC had 42.9% of the votes in Tshwane municipality against the DA’s 42.7 % after half the votes were tallied. “They are a ringing endorsement of the ANC’s service delivery program by the citizens of South Africa”.
Even if the ANC maintains its hold on local power through party alliances, any overall drop in support would reveal a shift in the country’s political power balance. In Nelson Mandela Bay it led with 49.5% versus 39.2%, with 94% of votes in. But this time, it has been challenged by corruption scandals and a stagnant economy that has frustrated the urban middle class, while protests in poor communities demanding basics like electricity and water have been common.
“I voted DA because I’m sick of the rotten, corrupt ANC”, said Simpiwe, an unemployed 55-year-old surrounded by shacks in a rundown Nelson Mandela Bay township on the southeast coast, after casting his ballot on Wednesday. Cape Town – the only major city not run by the ANC – is expected to remain under DA control.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane said last night that he would be speaking to other opposition parties about forming a coalition.
“Zuma’s close association with the wealthy Indian Gupta family, who landed their plane without permission at a military base, has also cost the party”, he said.
“Municipalities have no role in macroeconomic policy-making, but such a blow to the ANC’s traditional predominance could have an impact on policies, depending on the political repercussions and the conclusions that ANC leaders draw”, it said.
The radical left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by Julius Malema, Zuma’s one-time protégé, was on 8 percent nationwide.
Many South Africans who queued up to vote across the country said they were anxious about Zuma’s performance and the state of the economy, where one in four in the labour force is unemployed. The Constitutional Court recently said Zuma violated the constitution and instructed the president to reimburse the state $507,000.
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But this was down sharply from 62 percent in the 2011 municipal elections, suggesting voters are losing patience with Zuma, who rattled investors in December by changing finance ministers twice in a week, sending the rand currency plummeting.
