South Africans have voted resoundingly to extend the African National Congress’ (ANC) 20-year rule, ignoring leadership scandals and economic malaise in a wholesale display of loyalty to the party once led by former South African president Nelson Mandela.
Final results were expected later yesterday, but with about 95 percent of the ballots counted, the ANC had garnered a thumping 62.5 percent of the popular vote, spelling a parliamentary majority big enough to hand embattled South African President Jacob Zuma a second five-year term.
ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu said the 102-year-old party — which has held power since helping to end apartheid in 1994 — would ultimately receive “an overwhelming mandate” from voters.
Photo: EPA / Government Communication and Information System
The ANC’s status as the party of liberation was drilled home by the recent 20th anniversary of democracy and the outpouring of emotion that accompanied the death of Mandela in December last year.
However, with 62.5 percent, it would still fall short of the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution and will see its winning margin reduced for a second consecutive election, down from 66 percent at the previous poll.
Meanwhile the main opposition party, the centrist Democratic Alliance (DA), made rapid gains, boosted by a strong urban turnout.
Its share of the vote rose to 22 percent, up from 17 percent at the previous election in 2009, according to the incomplete results, and looked set to top the polls in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Julius Malema’s populist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) gained 6.1 percent of the vote, less than a year after the party was formed. It garnered more than one million votes.
Both DA and EFF support has been bolstered by a series of scandals surrounding Zuma and frustration at rampant poverty and poor public services.
Casting his ballot in his home village of Nkandla, Zuma said the “results will be very good,” but conceded the campaign had been “very challenging.”
Zuma has been a lightning rod for criticism of the ANC.
He came to office facing rape and corruption charges and has most recently been pilloried for spending US$23 million of taxpayer money to upgrade his private home.
However, voters appeared to put storied party before sullied president.
“When it comes to national elections the vast majority of ANC supporters decide that their loyalty to the organization is greater than their loyalty to its current leadership,” political commentator Steven Friedman said.
A record 25 million voters registered for the elections amid mounting anger over joblessness, inequality and corruption.
The electoral commission gave a provisional turnout figure of 73.1 percent, including hundreds of thousands of “born free” South Africans, who were registered to vote in a general election for the first time.
“People died for this right. They must not waste it,” said Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu, a liberation struggle veteran who had openly said he would not vote for the ANC this time.
The ballot was marred by isolated incidents of violence, including the killing of one ANC member at a polling station in KwaZulu-Natal Province.
Pansy Tlakula, chairperson of the Independent Election Commission, said a number of complaints were being investigated.
“We believe the credibility of the election has not been affected,” she said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was