ANC hopes to avert the worst post-apartheid outcome in the local vote in South Africa

  • Dissatisfaction with poor service delivery could cost ANC
  • Analysts predict that the parties’ share of the vote could drop below 50%
  • President Cyril Ramaphosa remains popular
  • ANC lost important metropolitan areas in surveys in 2016

JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 1 (Reuters) – South Africans voted in local elections on Monday, with the ruling African National Congress (ANC) hoping to avert its worst result since the end of white minority rule.

Political polls were unreliable, but given the climate of discontent and the limited number of polls carried out, some experts predict that the ANC’s share of the vote could fall below 50% for the first time since the end of apartheid.

President Cyril Ramaphosa remains popular after mobilizing government grants that prevented COVID-19 from turning into a hunger crisis. But persistent poverty, crumbling infrastructure and almost a third of the unemployed have meant that some voters have lost patience with the party that has ruled for 27 years.

“I’m here to vote for change,” said 67-year-old retiree Xinyenyani Mthembu at a polling station in Soweto Township.

“I’ve been very loyal to (the ANC) for so many years because there have been improvements, but it’s not enough,” he said, adding that it is the first time that he is changing his election against a new party led by the former Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba.

Ramaphosa admitted that many voters were not happy but urged them to support the party so that it could improve.

“This is the only election where we clearly tell our people that we will do better,” he said at the vote in Soweto. “We noticed that we didn’t always meet our people’s wishes.”

The ANC hopes to win back metropolises it lost to opposition-led coalitions in 2016, including Johannesburg and Pretoria, when its 54% share of the vote was its worst since it came to power. Continue reading

Locals wait to cast their votes during the local elections in an informal settlement in the Lawley community near Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 1, 2021. REUTERS / Siphiwe Sibeko

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Polls open at 0500 GMT and close at 1900 GMT.

ANC defenders say reversing decades of apartheid-era neglect in black neighborhoods would never be a quick fix. But it is also haunted by corruption scandals.

“UN DONE BUSINESS”

Getting less than half the vote would be a psychological blow and raise the previously unthinkable possibility that the ANC might one day be in opposition.

That still seems to be a way. Its main rival, the Democratic Alliance (DA), struggled to shed its image as a party with white privileges and suffered a backlash in October due to a divisive poster campaign addressing racial tensions between ethnic Indian and black communities.

And despite widespread dissatisfaction, the ANC’s emotional impact on poor, black townships remains strong, even among young voters who have no vivid memories of apartheid.

“There are so many unfinished business, like the street, a hospital,” said Jonathan Mathebula, 20, who stood in line for the vote in Diepsloot township north of Johannesburg. A main road promised for years by ANC councilors had never materialized, yet he said he would vote for the ANC.

Other parties include the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) – a Marxist group led by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema – and ActionSA, Mashaba’s party. Mashaba has been branded xenophobic for its populist rhetoric against illegal immigrants, which he believes has been misunderstood but refuses to tone down.

($ 1 = 14.8 rand)

Writing by Tim Cocks Editing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo

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