Johannesburg: The counting has begun after South Africans queued long into the night to cast their ballots in a watershed election that could end the ANC’s 30-year unbroken majority.
Shortly after the polls closed, long queues of voters began counting into the night after they closed at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Wednesday in several cities.
The final result is not expected to be known before the weekend, but observers will look to voter turnout and partial results to predict whether the ruling African National Congress (ANC) lost its parliamentary majority.
If President Cyril Ramaphosa’s party falls below 50 percent for the first time since coming to power in 1994 – in South Africa’s first post-apartheid election – it will force him to seek a coalition partner. To form a new government by Parliament.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said the last-minute rush and high number of votes in the municipal elections had led to late completion on Wednesday, but many voters complained that the three-vote system at the polling station was too complicated.
“We are experiencing slow growth and processing a large number of voters,” IEC chairman Sy Mamabolo told reporters.
The ANC has dominated South African politics since National Liberation leader Nelson Mandela won the country’s first democratic elections, leading to five consecutive presidents from the party.
The party is honored for its key role in overthrowing the rule of the white minority, and progressive social welfare and black economic empowerment policies are credited by supporters with helping lift millions of black families out of poverty.
But over thirty years of uneven governance, the party leadership has been involved in a massive corruption scandal, the continent’s most advanced economy has collapsed, and crime and unemployment levels have reached record levels.
In Durban, Sibahle Wilakazi, 25, an accountant and first-time voter, saw long queues far from polling stations, but said she would not be intimidated.
“I think we really need a change in this country and the queue is very long.” “I’m not giving up, I need to see a change.”
In Soweto, Kqomotso Mtumba, a 44-year-old bank employee, said he had previously voted for the ANC but chose a “closer party” whose manifesto impressed him.
Against this backdrop, Ramaphosa’s opponents from the left and right went to the polls on Wednesday, hoping to replace the ANC with an opposition alliance or force the party into a coalition deal.
Ramaphosa, who voted in his hometown of Soweto, a symbol of the struggle against apartheid, said the people would once again trust the ANC to lead the country.
But John Steenhuisen, leader of the largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), predicted that no party would win an outright majority and would create an open union with a small outfit for his party.
“For the first time in 30 years, there is an opportunity for change in South Africa,” he said.
Polls suggest the ANC could win 40 percent of the vote in 2019, down from 57 percent, but no opposition party is expected to change Steenhuisen’s forecast of 25 percent for the center-right DA.
