Voters condemn South African ruling party to worst election outcome

On Friday morning, it conceded defeat to the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party in Port Elizabeth, an industrial city that was a key battleground of Wednesday’s election.

The DA, which fell short of a majority in both Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay, would also need to form coalitions to take power in those areas.

Numerous leaders of the struggle against apartheid come from the area. With only three years to go before the next general elections, the DA and EFF have a short but significant window to perform well in their newly won areas and chip away at the ANC’s share of the vote in 2019.

The party also needs to hold and attract the support of urban voters, who are mostly young and educated and seem to be gravitating towards the DA.

ANC deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa told reporters Friday that the organization would “do an introspective look at ourselves”, The New York Times reported.

As The Associated Press reported, the ANC “had never lost a major majority-black municipality” until this vote, and Zuma was so confident going into the race that he recently claimed the organization would rule “until Jesus comes back”.

The Democratic Alliance, which has roots in the anti-apartheid movement and had a white party leader until previous year, won Nelson Mandela Bay after fielding a white candidate for mayor.

Final results are due on Saturday.

The ANC already has lost its first major black-majority municipality, Nelson Mandela Bay.

The swing in voter opinion is thought to reflect rising anger at a persistently high rate of unemployment and a lack of basic services in the country.

Somododa Fikeni, a political analyst with the University of South Africa, told Al Jazeera that the result of the local elections could force the ruling party to “listen and think more carefully” about their policies.

With 95 percent of votes counted the ruling ANC appears to.

It has, however, won some support from voters frustrated about inequality in a country where black people make up about 80 percent of the 54 million population, yet most land and companies remain in the hands of whites, who account for about 8 percent of the population.

“Ideologically, the EFF is closer to the ANC, though it will be loath to support the ANC which it has acrimoniously opposed in the National Assembly”, he said.

According to U.S. News & World Report, the DA and EFF made progress in what were historically ANC strongholds.

Led by populist Julius Malema, formerly of the ANC, the group says it is open to a role in a coalition – “except with the ANC”.

Zuma, 74, has been widely criticised since his decision to fire a respected finance minister in December caused a sell-off in the rand and nation’s bonds. One revolves around his using $500,000 of public money to refurbish his private home in Kwazulu-Natal, money the Constitutional Court says he must repay.