With most of the results now in from South Africa’s election, the long-ruling African National Congress (ANC) will have to contend with sharing power after a historic loss of its parliamentary majority.
Counting in over 97% of voting districts is complete and the ANC’s share of the vote currently stands at 40%.
Trailing behind are the Democratic Alliance (DA) on 22%, the MK party led by former President Jacob Zuma on 15% and the EFF with 9%.
The final results are expected over the weekend.
The ANC has always polled above 50% since the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, which saw Nelson Mandela become president.
But support for the party has been dropping significantly due to anger over high levels of corruption, unemployment and crime.
One woman who has voted for the ANC in every election for 30 years switched to the DA this time, and said she wanted them out of power altogether because of the cost-of-living crisis and the frequent power-cuts.
“This result is not good. I wanted it out of government. We need to give someone else a chance,” she told the BBC.
Political analyst Sanusha Naidoo told the BBC that although there were a lot of votes still to be counted, there was no way the ANC could reach the 50% needed to form a government on its own. She said the best it could hope for was 45%
So to hold on to power the party will need to form a coalition with one or more other parties.
ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe said his party was unlikely to form an alliance with the centre-right DA, which is currently polling in second place with 22% of the vote.
He said there would have to be “policy alignment” between parties to a coalition agreement.
For the ANC, its black empowerment policies – aimed at giving black people a stake in the economy following their exclusion during the racist apartheid era – were “non-negotiable”.
Source BBC
