A child watches as a man votes during the voting process in a polling station during municipal elections in Manenberg on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016.
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With almost 85 percent of all ballots counted, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress was poised to dominate the electoral landscape as it has every poll since apartheid was repealed 22 years ago.
THE ANC’s slight majority in Wednesday’s local government polls slowly grew on Thursday morning, while the DA took strong early leads in all three Gauteng metros, as well as Nelson Mandela Bay.
It had set its sights on winning the metropolitan areas of Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela Bay, taking in Port Elizabeth and Tshwane, which encompasses the capital Pretoria.
The ANC had topped 60 percent in every election since 1994, when black people were first allowed to participate in South Africa’s democracy.
President Jacob Zuma, who’s led the ANC since 2007, suffered an electoral embarrassment, losing the vote in his home district of Nkandla to the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party.
A significant loss of support for the ruling party in these areas could mark a watershed in South African society and politics as the country shifts from what has effectively been a one-party system in the era immediately post-apartheid.
A third party, the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters, held 8 per cent of the vote and could emerge as king maker in some cities where the opposition will seek to negotiate a coalition.
“The ANC is really losing ground”, Shadrack Gutto, director the Centre for African Renaissance Studies at the University of South Africa, told AFP.
But President Jacob Zuma retains widespread support, especially in rural areas, and the ANC’s patronage network and deep coffers could help it maintain a hold in the majority of the 278 municipalities.
“The vote will be a referendum on Zuma and the performance of his government on the national economy as well as the local level”, said BNP Paribas Securities South Africa political analyst Nic Borain.
The results, most of which are expected on Thursday, may pile pressure on Zuma, 74, to step down before his second term ends in 2019.
The Democratic Alliance was expected to keep hold of Cape Town, the only major city not run by the ANC. The slogans, a contradiction of the ANC’s multiracial traditions, failed to dent the growth of the DA under its first black leader, 36-year-old former pastor Mmusi Maimane. The Democratic Alliance was also ahead in Nelson Mandela Bay, a major municipality on the east coast.
“It doesn’t seem that the ANC is doing that badly that they will feel the need to get rid of Zuma, but they will have to do a lot of soul-searching”, Melanie Verwoerd, a former ANC lawmaker and South African ambassador to Ireland, who now works as an independent political analyst, said in an interview.
Contesting its first local poll after bursting onto the scene in the 2014 general election, the far-left EFF could emerge in the influential role of kingmaker.
Edward Mariba, 44, in Johannesburg said he voted for the EFF.
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Zuma has said he would repay some of the funds spent on his home and rejected criticism of his conduct, but anger is rising in a country on the brink of recession.
