The African National Congress (ANC) reeled from bruising local election results Friday as South African voters drift away from the celebrated party that led the anti-apartheid struggle.
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The ANC was expected to court the Economic Freedom Fighters aggressively as potential coalition partners after not only losing Tshwane but for falling short of an outright majority in Johannesburg.
Votes are still being counted in the economic center of Johannesburg, and Granitz reported the DA is claiming victory there, too. Mr. Zuma, a former intelligence chief with the ANC’s military wing during apartheid, has repeatedly demonstrated his skills as a wily tactician and has overcome several explosive political crises.
But current president, Jacob Zuma, in his second term, is under intense pressure from within the ANC to step down after a series of corruption scandals saw the party’s dominance eroded and Mr Zuma’s own hometown, Nkandla, in the hands of IFP, a rival party.
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.
“Our democracy is maturing”, he said.
“Let us get back to work and build our country together”.
Although the party still won a majority of the vote, the election results were seen as a serious setback as the ANC had historically never dipped below 62 percent of the popular vote in any major election since 1994. But it lost among other places in Port Elizabeth municipality, which the party had renamed the Nelson Mandela Bay, despite invoking anti-apartheid messaging in its campaign.
The Democratic Alliance won Nelson Mandela Bay after fielding a white candidate for mayor. Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic Alliance, which pulled in 26 percent, has worked hard to shed its image as a whites and mixed-race only party, catering to black voters and selecting a young black leader, Mmusi Maimane. The party, which has roots in the anti-apartheid movement, has declared that its brand is good governance. He added that “the idea that his party was a white one has been ‘completely shattered'”.
The party has 56 percent of the votes around South Africa.
Cyril Ramaphosa, the deputy president of the A.N.C. and of the nation, said at a news conference on Friday afternoon that the organization would “do an introspective look at ourselves”. With 95 percent of votes counted the ruling ANC appears to. The DA is creeping up on the ANC with around 27 percent of the national vote, to its opponent’s 54 percent.
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“A battle in the party could emerge from these poor results and ANC would have to find a dignified exit strategy for Zuma”, independent political analyst Daniel Silke told AFP.
