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African National Congress was poised to dominate the electoral landscape as it has every poll since apartheid was repealed 22 years ago.
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The ruling African National Congress – a party that contains a broad spectrum of political philosophies from free- market liberalism to communism – has successfully weathered many political storms during its 22 years in power.
South Africans lined up to cast their votes on Wednesday in local elections that are expected to present a tough challenge for the party of the late Nelson Mandela.
Shockwaves reverberated across the country when results of Nkandla, Zuma’s rural area and where he voted, showed that the ANC had lost the ward to IFP. “This is our moment”, said Mmusi Maimane, the party’s first black leader, as he cast his ballot in Johannesburg.
But it was behind the opposition DA in the municipalities that include the cities of Pretoria, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth, areas which it has held virtually unopposed since the end of apartheid. “They have run out of ideas, we are killing them”.
“It still is a dream to know that one can can vote in South Africa, as a black person”.
Members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) including the organization’s leadership were out on the streets in major cities, making door-to-door visits to encourage citizens to go out and vote.
Ahead of the polls, President Jacob Zuma told black voters to support the ANC and denounced the DA – which is widely seen as a party of middle-class whites – as the “spawn” of the apartheid government.
In Cape Town the DA won a landslide victory, winning more than 70 per cent of the vote, with the ANC receiving less than 20 per cent of the vote and the EFF showing a poor performance.
Baleka told reporters that it would be wrong to suggest that the governing party had dropped the ball in the run-up to the elections.
“I am voting for my children and their children and their children, and there is only one party that can help us get money and jobs: the ANC”, said Mavuso, who lined up to vote at daybreak.
Contesting its first local election after it appeared on the scene before the 2014 general vote, the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters may find itself playing kingmaker. With no party expected to pass the 50 percent mark in all three centers in Wednesday’s vote, Africa’s most-industrialized country may be headed for a new era of widespread coalition politics.
“We reconfirmed the fact that the most pressing concern is job creation and in that regard, we must without hesitation move swiftly into local economic development as a key goal of the ANC for the next five years”.
The vote is seen by some as a referendum on Zuma, who has been weakened by corruption scandals, court cases and dire economic data, including an unemployment rate of 27 per cent and zero per cent GDP growth. “Zuma doesn’t make decisions alone so the ANC is not Zuma alone, it’s a collective”, he said.
DA was much better placed in Nelson Mandela Bay after 88 per cent of votes were counted, outpacing the ANC by 48 per cent to 40 per cent and leaving EFF with 5 per cent.
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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.
