South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) party yesterday surged into the lead in early official results with 55 percent of the vote in the first electoral test of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s bid to reinvigorate the ruling party.
With just more than one-fifth of voting districts tallied, the South African Electoral Commission put the ANC well ahead, with its closest rival, the Democratic Alliance, trailing with a distant 26 percent, while the Economic Freedom Fighters, founded six years ago by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, was sitting at 8 percent.
Ramaphosa, 66, last year took over after the ANC forced then-South African president Jacob Zuma to resign after nine years dominated by corruption allegations and economic problems.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The party that wins the most seats in parliament selects the country’s president, who is to be sworn in on May 25.
“The outcome of this election will be a major boost for investors ... and investor confidence; it’s about confidence and about the future,” Ramaphosa said after voting on Wednesday.
The ANC’s reputation was badly sullied under Zuma.
“We apologize for our mistakes,” Ramaphosa added.
Support for the ANC has fallen in every election since 2004, with the party taking 54 percent in 2016 municipal elections, compared with 62 percent in 2014’s national vote.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela and the ANC were in 1994 swept to power in a landslide in the country’s first multiracial polls that marked the end of apartheid.
Most opinion surveys have suggested that the ANC will secure nearly 60 percent of the vote, thanks to Ramaphosa’s appeal and a fractured opposition.
University of South Africa political science professor Dirk Coetzee said that “the higher the percentage for the ANC, the more it will give him [Ramaphosa] bargaining power.”
“If Ramaphosa gets below 50 percent, he will be very vulnerable” to challenges from rivals within the ANC, he added.
The ANC has been facing deepening public anger over its failure to tackle poverty and inequality in post-apartheid South Africa.
“We have given them 25 years, but the poor are getting poorer and the rich richer,” said 28-year-old voter Anmareth Preece, a teacher from Coligny in North West Province. “We need a government that governs for the people, not for themselves.”
The economy last year grew just 0.8 percent and unemployment has hovered at about 27 percent — soaring to more than 50 percent among young people.
Of the 47 opposition parties in the race, only the main opposition centrist Democratic Alliance and the radical-left Economic Freedom Fighters are major players.
The Democratic Alliance is hoping to shed its image as a middle-class party. Its first black leader, Mmusi Maimane, is contesting his maiden general election since taking the helm in 2015, and is expected to make modest gains on the party’s 2014 vote share of 22 percent.
Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters was predicted to make major gains, growing from 6.3 percent to a forecast 11 percent.
“The ANC has taken people for granted. There is some arrogance which has crept in,” 45-year-old voter Mandla Booi said in Port Elizabeth on the south coast.
The Economic Freedom Fighters, which appeals mainly to young voters and the poor, has campaigned on a policy of seizing land from white owners to give to blacks.
Enforced land redistribution is also an ANC policy — alarming some investors.
About 26.8 million voters were registered to cast their ballots at 22,925 polling stations nationwide.
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