JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s four main political parties entered the final weekend of campaigning Saturday before a potentially crucial election that could bring the country’s most significant change in three decades.
Supporters of the long-ruling African National Congress, which has been in government since the end of white minority rule in 1994, gathered at a football stadium in Johannesburg to hear party leader and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa speak.
The ANC is under unprecedented pressure to retain its parliamentary majority in Africa’s most advanced country. After steadily declining in popularity over the past two decades, Wednesday’s vote could be a milestone as the party, once led by Nelson Mandela, falls below 50% of the vote for the first time.
Several polls have less than 50% support for the ANC, raising the possibility that it will have to form a national coalition. That would also be a first for the young democracy in South Africa, which was only established thirty years ago with the first round of voting for all races, which officially ended the apartheid system of racial segregation.
As thousands of ANC supporters in black, green and gold attended the last major rally before the elections, Ramaphosa acknowledged some of the grievances that have contributed to his party losing support, including the high levels of poverty and unemployment that have mainly affect the country’s economies. Black majority.
“We have a plan to get more South Africans to work,” Ramaphosa said. “Throughout this campaign, in the homes of our people, in the workplaces, on the streets of our townships and villages, so many of our people told us about their struggles to find work and provide for their families.”
The main opposition Democratic Alliance party held a rally in Cape Town, South Africa’s second-largest city and stronghold. Party leader John Steenhuisen gave a speech as supporters wearing the blue colors of the DA held up blue umbrellas.
“Democrats, my friends, are you ready for change?” said Steenhuisen. The crowd shouted back, “Yes!”
“Are you ready to save South Africa?” Steenhuisen added.
Although support for the ANC has shrunk in three successive national elections and appears set to continue declining, no party has emerged to overtake it – or even challenge it – and it is still widely expected to win the election in these elections. will somehow be the largest party.
But losing the majority would be the clearest rejection yet of the famous party that led the anti-apartheid movement and led South Africans to freedom.
Some ANC supporters also expressed frustration at the progress at the Johannesburg meeting as South Africa battles poverty, desperately high unemployment, some of the worst levels of inequality in the world, and other problems with corruption, violent crime and the failure of the grassroots government. services in some places.
“We want to see employment coming and basically general changes in every aspect,” said ANC supporter Ntombizonke Biyela. “We have been waiting for the ANC since 1994, it has taken a long time. We have voted and voted, but we see very little progress as people only seem to benefit a few.”
While the ANC has admitted some failures, it has maintained that South Africa is a better place than during apartheid, when a series of race-based laws oppressed the country’s black majority in favor of a small white minority. The ANC has also been widely praised for its success in expanding social support, housing and other services to millions of poor South Africans in the decade after apartheid, even as critics say it has lost its way recently.
“There are many problems in South Africa, but no one can deny the changes that have taken place since 1994, and that was thanks to the ANC,” said 42-year-old Eric Phoolo, another supporter of the ruling party. “These other parties I have no track record of bringing change to the country.”
As some voters have turned away from the ANC, this has led to a slow rift in South African politics. They have changed their allegiance to a range of different opposition parties, some of which are new. South Africa has registered dozens of parties to participate in next week’s elections.
South Africans vote for parties in national elections and not directly for their president. Parties are then given seats in Parliament based on their share of votes and lawmakers elect the president. That’s why losing the ANC’s majority would be so crucial to 71-year-old Ramaphosa’s hopes of being re-elected for a second and final five. -year term.
If the ANC falls below 50, it will likely need a coalition or agreement with other parties to get the votes in Parliament to keep Ramaphosa, once a protege of Mandela, as president.
The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters held their last major primary rally in the northern city of Polokwane, the birthplace of fiery leader Julius Malema.
Former South African president and former ANC leader Jacob Zuma’s new MK party also campaigned in a township just outside the east coast city of Durban, although Zuma did not attend the event. Zuma, 82, turned South African politics upside down when he announced late last year that he would leave the ANC and join MK, while fiercely criticizing the ANC under Ramaphosa.
Zuma has been disqualified as a candidate for parliament in the elections due to a previous criminal conviction.
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Gerald Imray reported from Cape Town and Farai Mutsaka from Durban.
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