(Johannesburg) The counting of votes continues Thursday morning, the day after crucial legislative elections in South Africa, where the ruling party, the ANC, could for the first time in its history lose its absolute majority.
Results are not expected until the weekend.
Most polling stations in South Africa closed at 9 p.m. (3 p.m. Eastern) on Wednesday evening, except in several major cities, including Durban, the capital of the Zulu country (East), where thousands of voters cast their ballots. waited for hours to cast their ballots, due to endless queues.
Of the more than 27 million registered, participation is expected to be strong, with the electoral commission estimating that it will be “much higher” than that of the last legislative elections in 2019, which was 66%.
Many observers will closely analyze participation and partial results in different areas, cities, suburbs and townships, to try to predict the trend over the coming days.
On Wednesday, voters shared their hopes and concerns: some maintain their confidence in the African National Congress (ANC) to address endemic unemployment, end record inequality and solve electricity shortages. Others, exasperated, chose the opposition, divided between numerous political groups.
The two main opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA, liberal center) like the Fighters for Economic Freedom (EFF, radical left) regretted dysfunctions, responsible for these crowds which “encourage people to leave before voting “.
In Durban, Sibahle Vilakazi, 25, returned at the end of the day a third time to her polling station, discouraged earlier by the crowd: “I will not give up, we need change, everyone here will hang “.
In Soweto, President Cyril Ramaphosa, 71, assured with a smile that the victory of the ANC was “without doubt”. But the leader of the DA, John Steenhuisen, spoke of a new era, after thirty years of elections where “it was obvious that the ANC was going to win, we only wondered with what score”.
” Keep his promises ”
South Africans had to choose from around fifty lists to elect 400 deputies by proportional representation, who will in turn designate the next president in June.
In Soweto, a township symbol of the fight against apartheid, the elderly faithful of the ANC, who experienced segregation, were the first in the early morning in the polling stations, followed by other voters often disillusioned by the state of the country.
Agnes Ngobeni, 76, will vote for ANC as long as she is alive: “It’s the party I love, the one that made me what I am.”
But Kqomotso Mtumba, a 44-year-old bank employee and former voter in Nelson Mandela’s party, has now chosen a “new party” with an attractive program. The ANC “didn’t keep its promises, so I’m going to try that one.”
“We have no job, no water, nothing works,” complains Danveries Mabasa, an unemployed 41-year-old.
This election is “undoubtedly the most unpredictable since 1994”, even if the ANC should remain the leading party in the Assembly, notes political analyst Daniel Silke.
Sluggish economy, repeated corruption scandals: the ruling party risks obtaining “a result potentially lower than 50%”. He 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 vote, according to polls. The left-wing radicals of the EFF 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, which is eating away at the party’s traditional electoral base in power on his left.