Duarte acknowledged that voters had sent a message. “As far as we’re concerned, we are the winning party on that board.”īut Ms. “We’re not a loser here,” Jessie Duarte, the party’s deputy secretary general, said at a news briefing on the floor of the results center in Pretoria. officials tried to cast the results in the best light. It will also have to pursue political compromises in Gauteng Province, home to the economic capital, Johannesburg, and Pretoria, the seat of government.Ī.N.C. remains South Africa’s dominant party, having secured 46 percent of the vote.īut the modest victory means it will now be forced to enter coalitions with smaller parties in cities it once comfortably controlled. This fallout could lead to a split in the ruling party but prove to be good for South African voters.Įven with its losses Monday, the A.N.C. Ramaphosa, in turn, may have to fire tainted but popular leaders, Mr. To replace him, his opponents will have to find a unifying candidate. Ramaphosa is likely to face leadership challenges from within his party. In the aftermath of the embarrassing showing this week, Mr. Ramaphosa were not at the center of the campaign, Mr. It was not enough to convince voters, but the A.N.C. so heavily relied on the personality of its leader in a local election, said William Gumede, chair of the Democracy Works Foundation. Not since the 1990s, when Nelson Mandela was the face of the party, has the A.N.C.
“But when they lower their eyes to the local leaders that are there, they see mediocrity.”
“They listen to him, they like him,” said Mcebisi Ndletyana, a political scientist at the University of Johannesburg. leaders promised to “learn from our mistakes,” and they staked their hopes this year on polling that found President Cyril Ramaphosa with a higher approval rating than that of his party.īut however warmly South Africans may feel toward their president, they see a disconnect between his message of national renewal and the corruption that has sullied his party and crippled municipalities. and of the main opposition parties, with voters choosing smaller, identity-driven parties.Īfter municipal setbacks in 2016, A.N.C. Significantly low voter turnout was a further indictment of the A.N.C. The result was a resounding rebuke for the A.N.C., particularly in urban areas. Voters went to the polls on Monday to choose councilors and mayors to govern towns and cities, but they used the opportunity to vent their grievances over national issues, including record unemployment and anger over the handling of Covid. JOHANNESBURG - The African National Congress, South Africa’s once-vaunted liberation movement, suffered its worst election showing since coming to power in 1994, according to the results of municipal elections released Thursday.įacing widespread anger over corruption and collapsing services, the party won less than 50 percent of the vote nationally on Monday, the first time in its history that it has failed to cross that threshold.
0 kommentar(er)
