The outcome of the municipal polls reshapes the political landscape in South Africa ahead of national elections due in 2019.
South Africa's ruling party was
struggling on Saturday to retain control of two major municipalities
after losing one other key urban area in its worst electoral performance
since the end of apartheid.
The African National
Congress (ANC) has ruled virtually unopposed since it ended
white-minority rule in 1994 with Nelson Mandela at its helm. But its
grip on power is being shaken against the backdrop of high unemployment,
a stagnating economy and a series of scandals that have dogged
President Jacob Zuma.
With 99
percent of votes counted from Wednesday's municipal elections, the ANC
was still leading in the overall count but had lost to the main
opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) in the municipality of Nelson
Mandela Bay, which includes the city of Port Elizabeth, a key
manufacturing hub and port city.
The DA was
narrowly ahead in Tshwane, home to the capital Pretoria, while the ANC
held a slim margin in the country's economic hub of Johannesburg, in
tight races that have changed hands several times during the vote count.
The
outcome of the municipal polls reshapes the political landscape in
South Africa ahead of national elections due in 2019 and they may also
embolden Zuma's rivals within the ANC to challenge him.
The DA, which last year elected its first black leader, Mmusi Maimane,
as part of a drive to shake off its image as a party that mainly serves
white interests, retained control of Cape Town, which it has held since
2006.
"It signals to everyone that the tide in
our country is turning," Maimane told reporters on Saturday, predicting
that his party would edge out the ANC in Tshwane and form a coalition to
run the municipality.
The ANC chairman in Gauteng
province, which includes both Tshwane and Johannesburg, said his party
was also seeking to form a coalition to govern both municipalities,
adding there was likely to be no outright winner in either of the urban
areas.
"We can confirm that we are into (coalition) negotiations as we speak," said Paul Mashatile, who blamed the poor result on low voter turnout.
"It's
quite clear that our people, our traditional supporters are still with
us but maybe not too many people came out to vote so we need to go back
and find out why," he added.
MISMANAGEMENT
The
ANC has lost support among voters who feel their lives have not
improved and the opposition has accused Zuma of mismanaging the economy.
Millions of urban voters are now looking beyond its liberation struggle
credentials and focusing on an economy teetering on the edge of a
recession.
"The ANC may just become a rural party," said William Gumede, head of the Democracy Works Foundation, a think-tank.
Zuma's office said he would attend the official announcement of the municipal election results later on Saturday in Pretoria.
Zuma
rattled investors in December by changing finance ministers twice in a
week, sending the rand currency plummeting. The rand has since recovered
and received a boost from the lack of violence during the local
elections.
Zuma survived an impeachment vote in
April after the Constitutional Court said he breached the law by
ignoring an order to repay some of $16 million in state funds spent on
renovating his private home. Zuma has since said he will repay some of
the money as ordered by the court.
The radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party led by Julius Malema,
Zuma's one-time protege but now arch-foe, was running a distant third
in the local elections, with about 10 percent of the vote.
Malema
has drawn support with promises to redistribute among poor black people
wealth still mostly in white hands - policies that both the DA and the
ANC have not found palatable.
But neck-and-neck
races between the ANC and DA in Johannesburg and Tshwane mean the EFF
could be needed for coalitions there. Malema has not said whom he would
back.
"If anyone comes to us, we'll talk," Malema told reporters when asked whether he would join a coalition.
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