(Johannesburg) Many South Africans, unable to travel on Wednesday to vote in the legislative elections, announced as the most contested in thirty years, began to cast their ballots on Monday.
Some 27.6 million voters in total are registered. More than 1.6 million had registered to vote ahead of the electoral holiday, and can either go to their polling stations, or benefit from a home visit, to vote on Monday and Tuesday.
Offices are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time. And agents from the Electoral Commission (IEC) will visit 624,000 voters in retirement homes, hospitals, prisons or even at home.
In this polling station in the popular district of Yeoville, in Johannesburg, the day started slowly: at the end of the morning, only four voters out of the 200 registered for early voting had cast their ballots.
Wrapped in a big sweater and velvet pants, on this chilly morning at the start of the southern winter, Philemon Makweng proudly says he has participated in every election since the advent of democracy in the country in 1994.
At 62 years old and now retired, he votes in advance to “avoid the young people in the queue, they push us”.
Like many of his fellow citizens, he heavily criticizes the thirty years of reign, without change, of the African National Congress (ANC) since the end of apartheid. But he doesn’t trust the opposition either: “I voted for the devil that I know, rather than for the new devils of whom we don’t know what they could bring.”
In front of the leisure center transformed into a polling station, members of the ANC and opposition parties, each confined under a tent, brandish T-shirts, caps and flags in their colors during final operations seduction.
“The ANC under pressure”
Lulama Mayeki, 59, voted for another party for the first time because she hopes for “a big change”. She wants to believe in a new government that will fight “against crime and poverty”.
Last weekend, the main opposition parties held their final rallies, promising their supporters to dethrone the ANC.
Since the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994, the party has won all national elections by a very large majority, obtaining 57% of the vote in 2019. But this time the ANC risks losing its majority in Parliament, oscillating between 40%. and 47% of the votes in opinion polls.
Voters are asked to appoint 400 deputies, proportionally via a list system, who will then choose the president. Around fifty parties are in the running.
“The ANC is going to the polls under pressure,” explains political analyst Steven Gruzd, “there is a lot of dissatisfaction with its government.”
For thirty years, voters were loyal to the party that liberated the country from the regime of racial segregation. But for many, the ANC, which had promised education, water, shelter and a vote to all South Africans, has not kept its commitments.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, 71, who is counting on a second term, has tirelessly highlighted the progress made since the end of apartheid to the 62 million South Africans, in terms of education, the fight against violence against to women or against corruption.
But a third of the working population remains unemployed. Poverty and inequality are increasing. And the continent’s leading industrial power is weighed down by water and electricity shortages.
The proliferation of corruption cases involving ANC figures has also deeply undermined confidence.
By falling below 50%, the ANC would be forced to form alliances to stay in power and conduct negotiations around the formation of a coalition government.