A member of the South African Defence Force guards a polling station while commuters make their way through the city the day after the election, outside the Durban City Hall, in Durban, South Africa, on May 30.ALAISTER RUSSELL/Reuters
South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress, has crashed to its worst-ever election performance, forcing it to look for coalition partners in a bid to maintain its power in parliament, partial results from Wednesday’s election show.
The ANC is projected to receive about 41 per cent of the vote, according to analyses based on results from nearly half of voting stations. It is also projected to lose control of South Africa’s two most populous provinces, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), and Gauteng, further weakening its traditional dominance of the country.
For President Cyril Ramaphosa, the result is a dramatic decline of 16 percentage points from the last election in 2019, when he and the ANC gained 57 per cent. The humiliating tumble will jeopardize Mr. Ramaphosa’s grip on the ANC leadership, raising the possibility that he could be pushed out and replaced.
This will be the first national election in which the ANC has received less than half of the vote since first gaining power in 1994 after apartheid’s demise. The party had captured as much as 70 per cent at its peak about two decades ago.
The results will throw South Africa into weeks of uncertainty as the ANC struggles to cobble together a working majority in parliament by a mid-June deadline. It will try to negotiate deals with smaller parties, allowing it to remain the dominant voice in the coalition. The election featured a record 70 political parties. But if it is obliged to negotiate with larger opposition parties, it could lose some of its long-standing control of government policy.
South Africa’s currency, the rand, tumbled in trading on Thursday as the projections became clear. Investors are worried that the results could weaken South Africa’s stability, leading to political gridlock and greater influence for left-wing or populist parties.
Despite its deteriorating position, the ANC remains by far the biggest party in the country. The biggest opposition party, the liberal Democratic Alliance, is projected to win about 22 per cent of the vote.
A new populist party known as MK, headed by former president Jacob Zuma, is running a surprising third in the election after its leaders broke away from the ANC. The party – which named itself after the ANC’s former paramilitary wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”) – wants to abolish the constitution and the current parliamentary system, transferring power to traditional tribal kings and queens.
The new opposition party is expected to become the biggest party in Mr. Zuma’s stronghold, KZN province, where it is likely to form the provincial government in alliance with other parties.
Early results from South Africa's election suggest the ruling African National Congress is set to lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since sweeping to power with Nelson Mandela as its leader at the end of apartheid.
Reuters
The ANC’s national chairperson, Gwede Mantashe, told journalists on Thursday that the success of MK was partly a result of “Zulu tribalism” – a reference to the party’s strong appeal in Zulu-speaking regions of the country. In a statement in response, MK ridiculed the allegation. The election results, however, clearly show an increasingly fragmented South Africa. Many of the newly emerging parties are populist or ethnic-based, catering to identity politics or narrow ideological interests.
For decades, the ANC has positioned itself as a multiracial and multiethnic party, winning votes from across the spectrum. But that broad appeal is rapidly breaking down as a result of the ANC’s record of corruption scandals and poor economic management. Voters have been angered by widespread electricity shortages and the country’s persistent inequality, worsening unemployment and stagnating economic growth.
If the final results show the ANC falling to 41 per cent as projected, there will be growing pressure on Mr. Ramaphosa to resign from the leadership, which in turn would trigger a change in the presidency, possibly opening the way for deputy president Paul Mashatile to take over.
For decades, voter turnout has been eroding in South African elections as voters grow weary of the ANC. Rather than switching to relatively unpopular opposition parties, many eligible voters simply stayed home, refusing to cast ballots as alienation and apathy grew.
Turnout in Wednesday’s election is projected to fall below 60 per cent, down from 66 per cent in the last election, despite long queues at many urban voting stations on election day. Electoral officials initially thought the voter turnout would rise, but the lengthy queues now seem to have been largely a result of technical glitches that delayed the work of voting stations.
The biggest opposition party, the DA, will maintain its control of Western Cape province, where Cape Town is located. But nationally it still appears unable to grow beyond the 22 per cent mark that it has reached in the past. A series of high-profile Black politicians have quit the DA, bolstering the perception that it is dominated by white leaders.
Another leading opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), is known for its pugnacious rhetoric and radical left-wing policies such as advocating the nationalization and expropriation of industries and farmland. It is projected to finish fourth, behind Mr. Zuma’s party.