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South Africans began voting on Wednesday. It is the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994, that the country is staring at an election that can throw up unpredictable results. President Cyril Ramaphosa cast his vote alongside his wife, Tshepo Motsepe in the Johannesburg township of Soweto.
South Africans began voting on Wednesday. It is the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994, that the country is staring at an election that can throw up unpredictable results. President Cyril Ramaphosa cast his vote alongside his wife, Tshepo Motsepe in the Johannesburg township of Soweto.
At stake is the three-decade dominance of the African National Congress party, which led South Africa out of apartheid’s brutal white minority rule in 1994.It is now the target of a new generation of discontent in a country of 62 million people — half of whom are estimated to be living in poverty.
Africa’s most advanced economy has some of the world’s deepest socioeconomic problems, including one of the worst unemployment rates at 32%.
The lingering inequality, with poverty and joblessness disproportionately affecting the Black majority, threatens to unseat the party that promised to end it by bringing down apartheid under the slogan of a better life for all.After winning six successive national elections, several polls have the ANC’s support at less than 50% ahead of this one, an unprecedented drop.
It might lose its majority in Parliament for the first time, although it’s widely expected to hold the most seats. Ramaphosa, the leader of the ANC, has promised to “do better.” The ANC has asked for more time and patience.
Former South African President Jacob Zuma cast his vote on Wednesday in an election seen as the country’s most important in 30 years and one that could put their young democracy in unknown territory.Zuma was disqualified from standing as a candidate for Parliament but his MK Party is still contesting and is the wild card.
South Africans were voting Wednesday in a national election that could be the country’s most hotly contested in 30 years, with the long-ruling African National Congress party facing a stern test to hold onto its majority.
The ANC has been the majority party in government ever since the end of South Africa’s apartheid system of white minority rule and the establishment of democracy in 1994 and has held the presidency since then.
Under the South African political system, people vote for parties and not directly for the president in their national elections. The two processes are separate, even though they are linked: Voters choose parties to decide the makeup of Parliament and lawmakers then elect the president.
Counting starts immediately after the polls close late Wednesday and the final results are expected by Sunday, according to the independent electoral commission that runs the election.
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The new Parliament must meet for its first session within 14 days of the election results being announced to choose the president. Should the ANC lose its majority, there would likely be a feverish period of bargaining between it and other parties to form some sort of coalition before Parliament sits.
