CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africans will vote Wednesday to decide whether their country will take the most important political step since it abolished apartheid and achieved democracy 30 years ago.
These national elections will not be as momentous as the one South Africa held in 1994 – there have been few. Nelson Mandela then led the African National Congress party to victory when majority black South Africans were allowed to vote for the first time. Half a century of racial segregation under apartheid – a violently enforced system that outraged the world – and hundreds of years of white minority rule officially ended.
But although the ANC is still in power in 2024, there is growing discontent, largely caused by high unemployment and poverty. That could lead to a majority of South Africans this week choosing a party other than the one that led them to freedom.
“Thirty years of South African democracy does not mean we have to endure an eternity under the ANC,” John Steenhuisen, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance party, said ahead of the election.
However, a change is not expected to be drastic.
The possible consequences are complex, because while several opinion polls have the ANC’s support at less than 50%, suggesting it is in danger of losing its majority for the first time, no opposition party has been in a position to overtake it . The ANC is still widely expected to be the largest party, well ahead of a growing number of opposition movements that are dividing disaffected votes.
But without an outright majority, the ANC would likely have to make deals or coalitions with others to stay in government and re-elect President Cyril Ramaphosa. That would put an end to South Africa’s political dominance after apartheid and usher in a new era in which the ANC co-governs.
The ANC won six consecutive national elections, starting with the election that made Mandela the first black president in 1994. But after peaking at almost 70% of the vote two decades ago, it has experienced a steady decline in support as South Africa struggles to secure almost 70% of the vote. with deep socio-economic problems, some of which were a result of apartheid.
The ANC has also been criticized for the corruption scandals that have plagued it and for failing to tackle the country’s violent crime problem. In the last three months of 2023, an average of 83 murders occurred per day. A disruption in basic government services is impacting many in the country of 62 million, leaving communities, villages and parts of major cities without water and electricity.
However, the problem that stands out is unemployment and the resulting poverty. South Africa’s official unemployment rate is the worst in the world at 32%, and for young people aged 15 to 34 it is even higher (45%). This is at odds with the country’s status as the most advanced on the African continent. The World Bank estimates that more than half of South Africans live below the poverty line.
“Together we will do more and better,” ANC leader Ramaphosa said in what has almost become a party motto. At the ANC’s last major meeting this weekend, he said it still represents the aspirations of the South African people and pledged to prioritize employment programs and provide social support to the millions who rely on government subsidies.
The ANC claims it is the only party that can effectively govern South Africa and while it undoubtedly faces the biggest electoral challenge, analysts point out that it has the most effective grassroots campaign machine and enjoys traditional support among older South Africans and people in rural areas. areas, voices that generally receive less airtime. The possibility that the ANC will hold on to its majority cannot be ruled out.
The elections will take place on one day, with almost 28 million people registered to vote in the country’s nine provinces. They will decide the composition of the national parliament, but also the provincial legislature. More than fifty parties have been registered to take part in the national elections, a record number, and independent candidates have stood for the first time.
South Africans do not vote directly for their president, but for parties. Those parties are given seats in parliament based on their share of the national vote and lawmakers choose the president, who has always been a member of the ANC because of its parliamentary majority.
Just over 80% of South Africans are black, but it is a multiracial country, with significant numbers of white people, of Indian descent or biracial ethnicity. Mandela called South Africa a ‘Rainbow Nation’ when he tried to harness that diversity into a new unity after apartheid.
But thirty years later, the black majority is still disproportionately affected by poverty. Although they strongly disagree on policy and are in no way united, the main opposition parties, from the centrist DA to the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters and former President Jacob Zuma’s new MK party, repeat one theme: that ANC has failed. to fulfill its promise of 1994, when it won victory under the slogan ‘A better life for all’.
The ANC’s declining appeal can be seen most clearly among the young, those South Africans aged 15 to 34 who did not experience apartheid or have no memory of it, and many of whom are now voters. These elections could give voice to a new generation, who are aware of apartheid and the ANC’s role in defeating it through the stories of their parents and grandparents, but do not see how it will help them thirty years later.
“The youth are not born, so we cannot tell them about the struggle for freedom,” said Simphiwe Mpungose, a provincial organizer of the new MK party. “They are concerned about what they are seeing now.”
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Associated Press writers Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg and Farai Mutsaka in Durban, South Africa, contributed.
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