johannesburg/South Africa’s ruling party, the historic African National Congress, will win Wednesday’s general election, but will lose the absolute majority it has ruled with since Nelson Mandela came to power in 1994, according to the first results published this week. Thursday by the Independent Electoral Commission.
With the vote share remaining at 13.45%, the downward trend predicted by pre-election polls continues, and the ANC is currently down to 42.49%, so President Cyril Ramaphosa will have to agree with the other formations to choose a second term. For another five years.
Although the results since 2004 have been getting worse post-election for the ANC, in the 2019 general election it managed to retain a comfortable majority of 57.5%, so if this trend continues, this time it will lose about fifteen points.
Although results have been getting worse since 2004 in election after election for the ANC, in the 2019 general election it managed to retain a comfortable majority of 57.5%.
This will be the first time the ANC has not obtained an absolute majority since South Africa’s first multi-racial elections after the end of apartheid in 1994, when Mandela became the country’s first black president.
In second place was the Democratic Alliance (centre-right liberal), led by John Steenhausen, with 26.12% of the votes, which led to a significant improvement in the result of 2019, when it obtained 20.77%.
The Democratic Action Party is the main opposition party, heir to the white political leadership that opposed the country’s apartheid regime racismIt is traditionally associated with the white minority vote, which represents 7.70% of the South African population.
The Economic Freedom Fighters party led by Julius Malema (far left) ranks third with 8.40%, and fourth place is Umkhonto Visizwe (MK Party), the new party of former President Jacob Zuma (2009-2018), with 7.75%.
Zuma tried to run for elections as head of the new political formation, but the Constitutional Court prevented him from doing so in the middle of the election campaign, as he was sentenced in 2021 to fifteen months in prison on charges of contempt.
However, the emergence of MK has affected the division of the ANC vote, which has also been marred by instances of corruption such as that of Zuma himself and has been exhausted by problems affecting the country, such as high unemployment, crime or cutbacks. electricity.
Nearly 28 million South Africans were called to the polls on Wednesday at a total of 23,293 polling stations, of which 3,132 have already been counted, according to the Independent Electoral Commission.
Nearly 28 million South Africans were called to the polls on Wednesday at a total of 23,293 polling stations, of which 3,132 have already been counted.
South Africans voted between 70 parties and eleven independent candidates for the 400-member National Assembly (the lower house of parliament), which in turn must choose the president. They also elected the authorities of the country’s nine provinces.
With a record number of registered voters – one million more than in 2019 – and queues waiting since before polling stations opened, enthusiasm was palpable among residents, although official participation figures have not yet been published, which may exceed 66% for 2019.
The Independent Electoral Commission has seven days to announce the official results, but is scheduled to announce them next Sunday.
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