South Africa local elections: ANC loses in capital Pretoria

Coalitions will not be easy to build since the ANC has called them “tactical marriages of convenience” and said that it could not enter a coalition with the DA. And the Democratic Alliance which primarily drew support from White South Africans, won the most votes in Nelson Mandela Bay, a Black majority city.

Maimane, the DA’s first black leader, had indicated before results began to come in that the polls were good for democracy. “The tide in our country is turning”, the leader of the leading opposition party says. The result changes the outlook for the next national election in 2019; the ANC still got the most votes, but now has to form coalitions in important cities. Residents of Atteridgeville, Mamelodi, Soshanguve and Hammanskraal said Didiza was not known in Tshwane and had been catapulted into her candidacy by the ANC leadership over incumbent mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa and his regional deputy chairman, Mapiti Matsena.

“We can confirm that we are into (coalition) negotiations as we speak”, said Paul Mashatile, who blamed the poor result on low voter turnout.

The loss of Pretoria comes on top of the ANC conceding defeat Friday in Port Elizabeth, a key battleground of Wednesday’s municipal election. Millions of urban voters are now looking beyond its liberation struggle credentials and focusing on an economy teetering on the edge of a recession.

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. The rand has since recovered, and received a boost from the peaceful vote. One revolves around his using $500,000 of public money to refurbish his private home, money the Constitutional Court says he must repay.

With 99% of the vote completed in Tshwane late on Saturday morning, the DA now has 43.12%, while the ANC has 41.21%.

The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) won 38.37 percent of the votes, and the Economic Freedom Fighgters (EFF) 11.09 percent, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) announced.

Political commentator Allister Sparks said the DA was “grabbing the gold nuggets of the economy” and would likely be able to argue in the 2019 national elections that it “already effectively runs the country”. “Foreign investors will probably welcome the fact that reduced support for the ruling ANC has helped the centrist DA rather than the leftist EFF”, said John Ashbourne, Africa analyst at Capital Economics, in a note.

And we’ll be able to tell how serious the South African surge is in a few years.

Meanwhile, anti-rape activists protested yesterday as Zuma delivered his first remarks after the local elections.

Power concentration under white apartheid rule was followed by a ruling elite under the African National Congress (ANC). Khwezi had accused Jacob Zuma of rape, a case in which Mr Zuma was acquitted. Zuma’s spokesman was unavailable to comment.

“Election after election, the ANC has hung on its past glory and kept its place in the hearts of most South Africans …”

Zuma, 73, has survived several political and personal scandals.