South Africa elections: ANC could lose key cities as support slips

South Africa’s urban voters have used local elections to hand the ruling ANC party the first major rebuke at the polls since it swept to power after the end of apartheid over two decades ago.

Early results from the municipal elections show huge gains for the Democratic Alliance (DA) in three of the country’s main urban centres.

Voters frustrated by flagging economic growth and high unemployment, worried about the looming threat of recession, and frustrated by graft allegations that have dogged the president, Jacob Zuma, have abandoned his party in huge numbers.

With vote counting ongoing, the ANC had an overall majority nationwide but had slipped below 50% in the capital Pretoria and the commercial centre Johannesburg, suggesting it would be forced to form a coalition to rule.

In the Nelson Mandela municipality that includes Port Elizabeth, the DA was leading 50% to 39% with 79% of the vote counted.

The loss of political control over the lives of millions, and urban budgets of billions of dollars will be a huge blow to a party so convinced of its right to rule that the general-secretary recently declared it had a mandate from God.

“Simply to form a coalition in Pretoria, the capital, would be an embarrassment,” independent analyst Daniel Silke told Agence France-Presse.

“What it really will say is that few results are certain in South African politics any more and that the certainty the ANC has enjoyed for so long would simply be negated.”

Preliminary results are not expected until late on Thursday, but with over two-thirds of the votes counted, opposition parties were celebrating what increasingly looked like a rout of the ruling party and a clear criticism of its controversial leader.

“We have shown some incredible growth,” Mmusi Maimane, the DA’s first black leader, told 702 radio. “We call this the change election because we felt that it was a referendum on Jacob Zuma as a national figure, but we also had a referendum about the future of South Africa.”

Radical new party the Economic Freedom Fighters claimed a small but significant slice of the vote in the first local elections it has contested, potentially making it a kingmaker in areas that need to form coalition rule.

A record number of voters, over 26 million, registered for the election, with rival parties apparently mobilising supporters to sign up and then attend polling stations far more effectively than the ANC.

“I just voted DA for change,” said Claire King, 30, in Port Elizabeth’s central business district. “I just think we now need change in our country. Let’s give the DA a chance and see what happens.”

The ANC has never won less than 60% of the vote since the country’s first multiracial vote in 1994, when Mandela was sworn in as president. So even if it manages to win an overall majority, the results are likely to strengthen critics of Zuma who are calling for his early resignation.

His term is due to end officially in 2019, when the country will hold national elections, but many in the ANC fear he is too deeply tainted after a string of corruption scandals and want him to step aside for a new leader.

Calls for him to resign mounted after a recent court finding that he spent government money on improvements to his private home.

The constitutional court ordered him to repay more than half a million dollars to the state. Critics also say he has been too close to a wealthy business family of Indian origin, with several senior politicians alleging that the Guptas were involved in senior cabinet appointments.

Concerns about management of the economy, particularly after he swapped finance ministers twice within a week, have eaten into confidence. There are hopes that a poor election result will force the ruling party to focus more on promoting economic growth.

“A very weak outcome for the ANC, getting less than a 55% national vote share and losing three metros, would likely be viewed as a market positive,” said the Nomura emerging market analyst Peter Attard Montalto.