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The African National Congress appeared on course to lose its outright majority for the first time since the start of multiparty elections in South Africa 30 years ago that followed the end of apartheid.
With 16 per cent of the national vote counted, the ANC was on 42.5 per cent — worse than many polls had predicted, although analysts cautioned that this could increase as more votes were counted. The main opposition Democratic Alliance was doing better than expected with 25.6 per cent, and Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters was on 8.5 per cent.
A model of predicted outcomes, developed by South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, put the ANC’s likely share of the final vote at 41.7 per cent, the DA at 21.3 per cent and EFF at 9 per cent.
The result would mark a sharp drop for the ANC, which won 57.5 per cent in the 2019 election when President Cyril Ramaphosa campaigned on a promise to eradicate widespread corruption and reform the governing party. Yet electricity blackouts became chronic during his tenure, while unemployment soared to about a third of the working-age population. The economy grew on average at below 1 per cent a year.
The outcome appeared to have been swayed by a plethora of new parties taking votes from the ANC. Former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe, a radical party formed only six months ago, appeared to have done well in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal, potentially dealing the ANC a heavy defeat in South Africa’s second-most populous province.
Political analysts warned that the tally could change and that the ANC vote tended to rally as the count went on because results from its strongholds in rural areas and some townships took longer to count.
But Frans Cronje, a political analyst, said the era of ANC dominance appeared to be over. “It’s astonishing to see, since it’s the most unnecessary political defeat. Had they focused on lifting growth beyond 2 per cent and creating jobs over the past decade, rather than pushing populist measures like expropriation, they’d have retained their majority,” he said.
Ebrahim Fakir, a political analyst with the Johannesburg-based Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy, warned that while it was premature to read too much into early results, the elections did mark a watershed. “The one thing we can say at least is that the era of substantive uncertainty is definitely here,” he said of the political system that appeared to be fragmenting as South Africa entered a new age of coalition politics.
This was evidenced by the more than 50 parties on the national ballot as well as almost a dozen independent candidates who were allowed to stand for the first time.
But Fakir also cautioned that, as South Africa entered a new phase of politics, there was a danger that its institutions would be found wanting. The new electoral system, which necessitates three separate ballots, had only been finalised a year ago, he said, giving the electoral commission insufficient time to prepare.
Voters complained of long queues on Wednesday, with some waiting at polling stations until late into the night to vote.
If the ANC tally dropped substantially below 45 per cent, the party might find it challenging to form a coalition with small parties and could even need to seek support from the EFF or Zuma’s MK — an outcome that some investors have dubbed the “doomsday scenario”.
However, analysts say a more likely outcome is that the ANC would be able to cobble together a coalition with the smaller parties that are less able to demand big policy shifts in return for their support.
Cronje said that even in the past few weeks, the ANC had been gaining ground, but this stopped after Ramaphosa signed a controversial new health insurance bill, which hurt it among the aspirant Black middle class.
At the same time, the Constitutional Court barred Zuma from standing for parliament based on his criminal conviction, allowing the ex-president to campaign as a victim of ANC persecution.
“These two events hurt the ANC badly in recent weeks. Were it not for this, I’d have expected it to have still got to 46 per cent of the vote,” he said.
South Africa’s financial markets weakened, with the rand falling to R18.67 to the dollar, from R18.41 on election day, while the main stock index shed 1.9 per cent, marginally worse than many other global markets on the day.
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