South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party was yesterday in touching distance of election victory, but with diminished support, complicating efforts to revive the country’s flagging economy and fight corruption.
The ANC, in power since 1994, held a very comfortable lead with nearly 57 percent after three-fourths of voting districts were officially tallied following Wednesday’s vote.
However, the result would be the party’s worst national showing since former South African president Nelson Mandela led the ANC to victory in the first multiracial polls after apartheid ended in 1994.
Ramaphosa, 66, took over last year when the party forced then-South African president Jacob Zuma to resign after nine years dominated by corruption allegations and economic problems.
He was expected to visit the South African Electoral Commission results operation center in Pretoria at 10am.
“We’re going to be the government, whether there is decline or increase,” ANC Chairman Gwede Mantashe said late on Thursday.
Results released by the commission showed the ANC’s closest rival, the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), trailing with a distant 22 percent of the vote.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), founded six years ago by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, was in third place with almost 10 percent.
Final results are expected to be officially certified today.
A new projection by South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research forecast that the ANC would win with 57 percent — a 5 percentage point drop from the last election in 2014.
ANC Deputy Secretary-General Jessie Duarte said that the partial results were neither a “disappointment” nor a “surprise.”
“What I think is important to recognize is the deepening of our democracy,” she said at the commission in Pretoria.
The party that wins the most seats in parliament selects the president, who is to be sworn in on May 25.
“This is an election that will really offer the ANC a last chance to kick-start economic growth,” political analyst Daniel Silke said. “The pressure is really on Ramaphosa in the next five years.”
Ramaphosa has faced resistance to his reform agenda, especially from Zuma’s allies, who still occupy several high-ranking positions in the party and government.
After casting his ballot on Wednesday, Ramaphosa said that the election was “heralding a new dawn... A period of renewal, a period of hope.”
The ANC’s reputation was badly sullied under Zuma. Its support 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.
Most opinion polls before the vote had suggested that the ANC would secure nearly 60 percent of the vote because of Ramaphosa’s appeal and a fractured opposition.
The conservative and predominantly white Freedom Front Plus party, founded in 1994 during negotiations to end apartheid, was performing strongly as the fourth-biggest party in the vote.
The main opposition DA is hoping to shed its image as a white, middle-class party with its first black leader, Mmusi Maimane, contesting his first general election since taking the helm in 2015.
“Black South Africans have voted for the DA, white South Africans have voted for the DA. I’m quite content with where we are at the moment as a party,” Maimane told reporters at the results center.
Malema’s EFF was predicted to make major gains, growing from 6.3 percent to a forecast 11 percent.
“We got into the race for significant change,” Economic Freedom Fighters Secretary-General Godrich Gardee said.
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