Southern Africa’s ruling ANC is set to lose its the majority of its supporters in a pivotal election early results suggest
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress appears set to lose its majority in the country’s largest political shift since the end apartheid.
Initial indicators from 20.4 percent of polls indicate the ANC increasing 43.39 percent of the support and an alliance with the Democratic Alliance (DA) wresting 24.83 percent of votes as well as those of the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on the other hand with 8.83 percent.
Reuters said that the country’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research has also forecast for the ANC will win around 40% of nation’s vote, based on projections at the time that 8.5 percent of polling places had reported results.
The results of the preliminary tests are subject to alteration.
The loss of a majority in the parliamentary parliament will force the ANC to look for an alliance with a number of parties to rule, creating anxiety about the country’s current future direction in politics.
“The ANC will fall short of the mark of 50 however, it could achieve 45percent. MK is receiving votes from the EFF as well as the ANC. Smaller parties are making progress,” said Pat Thaker, MENA director at the Economist Intelligence Unit. The MK is the acronym for an organization called the uMkhonto weSizwe Party of the former president of the country Jacob Zuma.
“Potential smaller-party allies for the ANC are currently on 10.9% in total, suggesting that the ANC could still lead the next government with their support, without relying on the DA, EFF or MK,” Thaker said.
The news could impact investors, as it was revealed that ANC was the political party that was founded by Nelson Mandela, emblematic of the struggle to be free from white minority rulehas centered its economic policy on inclusion and improving standards of living for the poor. However however, there is still a gap in the World Bank in 2022 classified South Africa “the most unequal country in the world,” and systemic issues like constant blackouts, unemployment of nearly 33%, and high rates of crime continue to plague the nation of more than the 62 million population.
The International Monetary Fund projects that South Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) will rise by 0.9 percent in 2024..
The ANC’s popularity has been declining in recent years, with Statista figures showing that the party had an overwhelming majority of 57.5 percent in the last election in 2019 — its lowest percentage since the launch of South Africa’s very first democratic elections in 1994.
“Under my direction, the ANC conducted a mighty and clean campaign, with our volunteers spanning the entire length and breadth of our nation. It is likely that the democratic system likely to be a winner,” ANC leader and South Africa’s current president Cyril Ramaphosa, 71, announced on Wednesday via social media.
Ramaphosa who assumed the presidency in the year 2018, was instrumental in establishing the National Union of Mineworkers in 1982 and was the leader of one of the biggest strike campaigns in the nation’s history. He’s seeking a second term after surviving an investigation that involved the theft of nearly half one million U.S. dollars and being exonerated in 2023 of any wrongdoing, according to the Associated Press.
The U.S. dollar was trading up 1.36 percent in comparison to the South African rand at 1 p.m. London time, in the wake of the report. The principal Johannesburg stock index had dropped 2.23 percent by midday on Thursday.
