فاس نيوز ميديا جريدة الكترونية جهوية تعنى بشؤون و أخبار جهة فاس مكناس – متجددة على مدار الساعة
DA and EFF Denounce Malfunctions
The votes are still being counted on May 30, following crucial general elections for the ruling party. For the first time in its history, Cyril Ramaphosa’s party could lose its absolute majority.
Most polling stations in South Africa closed on Wednesday, May 29 at 9 p.m., except in several major cities, including Durban, the capital of the Zulu country (East), where thousands of voters waited for hours to cast their ballots due to endless queues.
Among the more than 27 million registered voters, participation is expected to be high, with the electoral commission estimating that it will be “significantly higher” than the last elections in 2019 (66% at the time). Results are not expected before the weekend, and many observers will closely analyze the participation rates and partial results in different areas, cities, suburbs, and townships to try to predict the trend in the coming days.
Wednesday, voters shared their hopes and concerns: some maintain their trust in the African National Congress (ANC) to address endemic unemployment, end record inequalities, and put an end to electricity shortages. Others, frustrated, have chosen the opposition, fragmented among many political parties.
The two main opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA, center-liberal) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF, radical left), have criticized malfunctions responsible for the crowds that “encourage people to leave before voting.”
In Durban, Sibahle Vilakazi, 25, returned to her polling station for the third time at the end of the day, discouraged earlier by the crowd: “I will not give up, we need change, everyone here will stick together.”
In Soweto, President Cyril Ramaphosa, 71, smiled and assured that the ANC’s victory was “undoubtedly.” But DA leader John Steenhuisen spoke of a new era after thirty years of elections where “it was obvious that the ANC would win [and where] the only question was with what score.”
“A Potentially Less Than 50% Result”
South Africans had to choose from around fifty lists to elect 400 proportional representatives. These representatives will in turn elect the next president in June.
In Soweto, a township symbol of the fight against apartheid, elderly ANC supporters, who experienced segregation, were the first at the polling stations in the early morning, followed by other often disillusioned voters. Agnes Ngobeni, 76, will vote ANC as long as she is alive: “It’s the party I love, the one that made me who I am.”
But Kqomotso Mtumba, a 44-year-old bank employee and former voter of Nelson Mandela’s party, has now chosen a “new party” with an appealing program. The ANC “did not keep its promises, so I will try this one.” “We have no jobs, no water, nothing works,” also complains Danveries Mabasa, a 41-year-old unemployed man.
This election is “without a doubt the most unpredictable since 1994,” even if the ANC is expected to remain the largest party in the Assembly, notes political analyst Daniel Silke.
A gloomy economy, repeated corruption scandals… The ruling party risks obtaining “a potentially less than 50% result.” It would then be forced to form a coalition government. The DA, which promises to “save South Africa” and its economy, could win 25% of the votes, according to polls. The left-wing radicals of the EFF, on the other hand, are credited with around 10%.
But the biggest threat to the ANC could come from the small populist party Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), led by former President Jacob Zuma, credited with up to 14% of the vote, nibbling at the traditional electoral base of the ruling party on its left.
