South African ruling party faces challenge in elections

However, despite being in prime position, the ANC risks losing control of some major urban areas, like the capital city Pretoria where its Democratic Alliance (DA) rival polled nearly 50 percent of the vote, while the ruling party won just 38.76 percent.

Millions of South Africans are expected to go the polls to vote in local elections on 3 August.

South Africa’s economy has also been one of the main issues for voters, with growth expected to be zero this year, and unemployment standing at 27%.

South Africa’s electoral commission said late Wednesday voting had proceeded smoothly and without major incident.

However, tragedy hit when three people were reported to have died during the elections: an African National Congress youth volunteer, aged 19, collapsed from a suspected heart attack after casting his ballot at a voting station in Struisbaai; while two voters died, apparently due to natural causes, at stations in Bulwer in KwaZulu-Natal and Strydenberg, Northern Cape. “We’re struggling. For 22 years the ANC has been in power but nothing has changed”, said Philemon Mathebula, an unemployed 35-year-old from Johannesburg. While the ANC is facing mounting discontent, it remains unclear if opposition parties, including Mmusi Maimane’s Democratic Alliance and Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters, will be able to sway enough voters.

The DA’s strategy looks to have paid off spectacularly in Nelson Mandela Bay, the municipal area encompassing Port Elizabeth, where the DA are set for a crushing victory.

“The ANC further calls on its members who will be voting in areas where there have been high levels of political tension, to exercise tolerance and restraint, even in the face of provocation”, he said. Municipal councils govern services such as electricity, sanitation and water.

He said now he wanted a flag to represent the coloured people, which he would put over his heart; one he imagined would show someone “sleeping after lunch or holding up a gun”. South Africans voted Wednesday in…

“Zuma doesn’t make decisions alone so the ANC is not Zuma alone, it’s a collective”.

The rand has since recovered.

But Mr Zuma has had to weather scandal, after being ordered to repay taxpayers’ money spent on his private home. But anger is rising in a country on the brink of recession.

Analysts also predict a downgrade by credit ratings agencies to “junk” status.

Malema plans to redistribute among poor blacks wealth still largely held by whites. “Remember when fellow political activists that fought for our freedom denounced Zuma?” wrote another. “Let’s wait and see what happens later”. The ANC says its own surveys show it retaining control of the main centers, while the DA says the race is neck-and-neck in Tshwane, the municipality that includes Pretoria, and Port Elizabeth.

The partial results may not be an accurate indication of the final outcome as counting from rural areas and townships where the ANC has historically had more support tends to take longer. Approximately 40% of South Africa’s population is resident in the metros, where patterns reflect the shifting appetites of the urban voter base.

Outside a queue of people wearing jackets and hats to keep warm snaked to the polling station. It is contesting the local elections for the first time.