South Africa’s ruling party has suffered a historic defeat in the country’s capital in local elections, highlighting the declining popularity of the party that led the anti-apartheid struggle.
The ANC’s support dropped to 54.5 percent in an Aug. 3 local government election from 62.2 percent in a national vote two years ago. The party was downgraded to second place in the capital, Pretoria, and southern city of Port Elizabeth, and gave up outright majorities in financial center, Johannesburg, and its industrial hub neighbor Ekurhuleni.
The party now controls by itself only three of the country’s eight metropolitan areas.
In Tshwane, the metropolitan area that includes Pretoria, the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) won 43.1 per cent of the vote over the Africa National Congress (ANC) 41.2 per cent.
The loss of Pretoria comes on top of the ANC conceding defeat Friday in Port Elizabeth, a key battleground of Wednesday’s municipal election.
Defeat in Port Elizabeth by a margin of 46.7 to 40 per cent was a humiliating blow for the ANC, as the municipality is officially known as “Nelson Mandela Bay” in tribute to its past as a hotbed of anti-apartheid activism.
“The ANC has its back against the wall,” Zamikhaya Maseti, an independent political analyst, said in Pretoria on Saturday. “We can see the trends, that from 2009 it’s going downhill. South Africans are tired of a party that can’t deal with scandals involving the president.”
To fall beneath 60% is psychologically significant. For more than 20 years, ANC electoral support appeared unyielding to the obvious weaknesses of its performance in government. Unemployment and inequality have been increasing, and the economy slowing almost to a halt in recent years.
Add to this the infelicities of its leadership, especially Zuma’s. A powerful patronage network has attached itself to Zuma, most obviously evidenced by the corrupting influence of the Gupta family and other such cronies.
Cynicism about democracy in the middle and professional classes has grown. The Afrobarometer opinion series has noted a sharp fall in trust in both Zuma and in institutions of representative democracy, such as parliament.
Former ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa, a businessman and former Zuma ally, summed up the ANC’s losses, “We need to accept the reality that there are many young people who voted for the DA. Where do these people come from? They left the ANC and why did they leave the ANC? The clever blacks have spoken… The masses are punishing us with the weapon we won for them. The vote.”
The rand gained as the results showed the ANC losing ground, which may press the party to introduce economic reforms. South Africa was the best performer against the dollar on Thursday of 24 emerging markets currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
The change in Rand is proof that the world was watching, and this is what they had to say…
The East African:
“The results may even mark the start of a new era, distinct from the ‘post-apartheid’ period that immediately followed the end of white-minority rule, as the African National Congress wakes up to the changed reality that it can no longer rely on the unquestioning support of poor black voters.”
The New York Times:
“The African National Congress, the party that helped liberate black South Africans from white-minority rule but has become mired in corruption, endured its worst election since taking power after the end of apartheid, according to results released on Friday.”
Indian Express:
The ANC has lost support among voters who feel their lives have not improved and the opposition has accused Zuma of mismanaging the economy. Millions of urban voters are now looking beyond its liberation struggle credentials and focusing on an economy teetering on the edge of a recession.
The Guardian:
“But there is a deeper trend that points to some of the paradoxes of South Africa’s transition. The failure to spread access to the good life – to schools and healthcare and work – is obvious. People look around after more than 20 years of one-person, one-vote and see that opportunities have gone to some, while many others are still on the sidelines.”
The Financial Times:
“Its share [The ANC] of the vote in local elections sank to 55 per cent in a humiliation for PresidentJacob Zuma, 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.”
The Economist:
“South African elections are impressively clean affairs by any standards. Nasty weather was the biggest problem of the day, according to the Independent Electoral Commission … all of this is good news for South African democracy. Jacob Zuma, the unpopular president, has been dogged by corruption allegations and scandals for nearly his entire time in office. According to a recent Ipsos survey, 57% of South Africans believe the ANC has “lost its moral compass”.
Across the country there is hope and uncertainty in equal measure. Will the new era of competitive multi-party democracy and coalition politics deliver better government and better prospects for the people of South Africa, especially its poorest citizens? A new dawn has broken, but the question of whether it offers a brighter future for Africa’s third largest economy will only be answered with action.
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