Centrum Stosunków Międzynarodowych - 05 August 2016: Further on elections in South Africa

The first results from South Africa municipal elections are out. As predicted the ANC is suffering a serious blow. They lost one of its strongholds, Port Elizabeth, in the Nelson Mandela Bay area. The victorious opposition, DA, even thou it didn’t win enough votes to rule in Port Elizabeth by itself, has reassured that they wouldn’t go into an alliance with ANC. The ANC is still expected to win in the country overall, however, with much less support than in the previous years.

It is the first elections since 1994 that ANC wins with less tan 60% of votes, which might cause a psychological and moral damage to the party. Their decline is mainly caused by the persisting poor economic situation in the country, including problems such unemployment and growing inequality. Experts, as well as leaders of the opposition say that this is a wake-up call for ANC and its leader, the President Jacob Zuma. They expect it to be the end of the days when South Africa is effectively led by a single political party. The leader of DA said: ‘‘If you ask people in Nelson Mandela Bay what they voted for they said ‘We voted for change’ ‘’. The final election results will be out later today.