CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South African opposition parties made a final appeal to voters Tuesday as the country faces the possibility of a game-changing change in its young democracy.
At the heart of Wednesday’s national election is whether South Africans will voice their strongest rejection yet of the ruling African National Congress party, which has ruled since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994.
The ANC has won a majority in every national election for the past three decades, but several polls put its support at less than 50% above this, raising the likelihood of a major shift in Africa’s most advanced economy. The final election results are expected on Sunday.
As the ANC’s appeal as a liberator fades among younger voters with no memory of apartheid, opposition parties are closing in, promising to keep promises that many believe have gone unfulfilled.
Main opposition leader John Steenhuisen of the Democratic Alliance party called it “South Africa’s most consequential election in post-democratic history.” He urged people to vote for the ANC to ‘save’ the country.
“There is so much at stake in these elections that people cannot stay at home,” Steenhuisen said while campaigning in the party’s stronghold of Cape Town.
The Economic Freedom Fighters, the third largest party in parliament, said they were calling on their supporters to “flood the polling stations to make our voices heard tomorrow.”
The ANC claimed it was “the only authentic political party with the ability and experience to govern.”
South Africa’s opposition parties have highlighted widespread poverty, high unemployment and the failure of basic government services in many communities as reasons for abandoning the ANC after three decades.
But a new ruling party is unlikely to take its place.
The ANC is still expected to win the most seats in parliament. But without an outright majority, the country may have to rely on a coalition to govern and re-elect President Cyril Ramaphosa to a second and final five-year term. That has never happened before in South Africa. It is still not clear who in the opposition the ANC could turn to.
The ANC insists it is focused on retaining its majority.
Voting started on Monday and Tuesday with South Africans who had been given special permission, such as the elderly, members of the armed forces and critical workers, casting their ballots early. Just over 600,000 people were registered to vote early, the Independent Electoral Commission said.
The vast majority of the nearly 28 million registered voters in the country of 62 million are expected to go to the polls in South Africa’s nine provinces on Wednesday, a national holiday.
According to the electoral commission, more than fifty parties have been registered to participate in the national elections, the most ever. Many parties are new. Independent candidates may also stand as candidates for the first time.
This has given rise to a fragmented opposition that also includes former South African President Jacob Zuma’s new MK party.
Shamiso Tebogo Bopape, a 21-year-old student at the University of Johannesburg, said there was no clear opposition party for her and other young people to choose from.
“We don’t know who to put our trust in,” she said. “The smaller parties have not been put in these more prosperous positions or bigger positions. We didn’t give them enough power to see what they would do. in that position, so we can’t necessarily say we trust them.
The electoral commission has said the special voting started smoothly overall. South Africa has held largely peaceful and credible elections since the violent run-up to the crucial 1994 vote that ended apartheid.
The committee did say it faced a battle against election disinformation. The latest example stated that South Africans would be allowed to vote even if they had manicured or false fingernails, debunking claims that they would not. Such nails would not affect how officials place a mark of indelible ink at the base of the left thumb to indicate a person has voted, the commission said.
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Risemberg reported from Johannesburg.
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