South Africa’s ANC suffers worst election result since end of apartheid

August 5, 2016

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party has suffered its worst election result since it came to power in 1994, threatening its rule in several of the country’s biggest cities.

Its share of the vote in local elections sank to 55 per cent in a humiliation for President , who has survived a number of scandals and been blamed by many for overseeing a corrupt administration that has betrayed the party’s core principles.

In what is set to be the ANC’s lowest ebb since it took power after the end of apartheid, the party lost control of Port Elizabeth, where the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) was leading on Friday morning with 47 per cent of the vote to the ANC’s 41 per cent.

The ANC’s loss of ground in its long-time stronghold is a huge symbolic blow for the party, which conceded defeat in Bay municipality, which includes Port Elizabeth, on Friday.

Jackson Mthembu, the ANC’s chief whip, said the results were a “cause for concern”, adding that the party had to be “very critical of ourselves”.

“We will have to dig very deep, and see what went wrong. Are there any issues that we should have dealt with better?” he told News24, a local media group. “We will have to look ourselves in the face and be very critical of ourselves.”

Source: Financial Times (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a4d6f4c2-5a03-11e6-9f70- badea1b336d4.html?siteedition=intl#axzz4JYZGkNQ7) The ANC’s control over the economic hub of and the capital Pretoria was also in the balance as counting continued on Friday. Mr Mthembu said the party was confident it would prevail in both, though he conceded the margins of their win might be narrow.

As results trickled for Johannesburg and Pretoria, the ANC and DA were virtually neck and neck with each party garnering just over 40 per cent of the vote.

“We see decline pretty much across the board, in all of the metros,” said Susan Booysen, a political scientist. “The declines were expected, but their severity was not.”

Adam Habib, vice-chancellor of Wits university, said the result was a “huge blow” to the party. “This is definitely an anti-Zuma vote,” he said.

The result is expected to throw South African politics wide open. The Economic Freedom Fighters, a radical breakaway from the ANC led by Julius Malema, was likely to be able to decide whether to form coalition governments in some cities with either the ANC or the centre-right DA.

Meanwhile, what Mr Habib called the “modernist” wing of the ANC will have to decide whether to mount a further attempt to oust Mr Zuma. If the leadership in Gauteng province, where both Johannesburg and Pretoria are located, did not move against Mr Zuma, he said, the president might well try to move against them, by making them a scapegoat for the poor performance in both cities. “Either way you’re going to see a massive conflict within the ANC,” he said.

Speaking shortly before the election, , an ANC veteran and a member of its powerful National Executive Committee, said he did not believe the party would lose in big cities such as Pretoria. “I will not be amazed, I will be devastated,” he said.

The DA, which grew out of the white liberal movement, has been gaining support among black voters under the leadership of Mmusi Maimane, its first black leader. The party appeared to make modest but significant gains in this week’s contest, winning just over 27 per cent of the vote — up from 24 per cent in 2011.

“Many South Africans came out in these elections and, we believe, voted for change,” Mr Maimane told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve shown some incredible growth, and we’re quite excited about that.”

The ANC has lost support from South Africans who feel excluded from the economy and are losing faith in the party that led the struggle against apartheid, observers say. Some 22 years after the doors closed on that repressive regime, South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world, and its economy is perilously close to recession.

The EFF, the radical newer party that won about 6 per cent of the vote in its first national elections in 2014, also made gains this week.

A record number of South Africans registered to vote in this week’s polls. Turnout was expected to be high, but the ANC voiced some early concerns that low voter participation could impact its performance on Thursday.

Source: Financial Times (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a4d6f4c2-5a03-11e6-9f70- badea1b336d4.html?siteedition=intl#axzz4JYZGkNQ7) The ANC is “on a downward trajectory”, said William Gumede, executive chairperson of Democracy Works. “With Zuma at the helm that’s going to get faster.”

Voting was for the most part uneventful on Wednesday, as people fanned out at more than 22,600 polling stations to cast their ballots. A record 26.3m South Africans registered to vote.

The electoral commission’s initial estimate of turnout was about 58 per cent.

The ANC had pumped R1bn ($71m) into its campaign in an effort to counter increasing competition. Mr Zuma, whose popularity among urban voters has dipped amid concerns about corruption, has lashed out at the opposition and cast his party as the only legitimate choice for black South Africans.

Source: Financial Times (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a4d6f4c2-5a03-11e6-9f70- badea1b336d4.html?siteedition=intl#axzz4JYZGkNQ7)