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Major election setback for South Africa’s ruling party

Party of Mandela has its worst result in voting since end of apartheid

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times
Published: August 6, 2016, 8:11pm

JOHANNESBURG — The party of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s governing African National Congress, sustained its biggest election blow since the end of apartheid Saturday, as many voters in municipal elections either didn’t vote or favored two black-led opposition parties.

The ANC’s support remained substantial, at around 54 percent of the vote 22 years after the nation’s first democratic election. But it lost to the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, in two major cities — Tshwane, where the seat of government, Pretoria, is located, and Nelson Mandela Bay on the south coast, where a white mayor, Athol Trollip, will govern for the DA.

The 54 percent tally was a major psychological blow for a party whose vote had never fallen below 60 percent in previous elections.

Results for the most populous city, Johannesburg, were still being counted, but the ANC was well ahead with 44 percent of the vote, against 38.7 percent for the DA.

In a sign of the ANC’s shock at the losses, the governing party canceled its victory party at its election headquarters in Johannesburg Saturday, according to local media.

The result puts the spotlight on South African President Jacob Zuma, who has been criticized for passing off personal upgrades to his home as security expenses.

The ANC’s support in most rural areas held up and its support in Zuma’s stronghold of KwaZulu-Natal increased. But its losses in urban areas may signal that the ANC’s hold over middle-class black voters and poor blacks in big urban townships may be waning.

More than two decades after the end of apartheid, growth is sluggish, and unemployment remains stubbornly high at nearly 27 percent, excluding those who have given up looking for work.

Senior ANC figures said the government would go back to its base to find out why people turned away from the party.

“Once we go back’ they will say’ ‘Well guys’ we did not vote for you because we are not happy about this,’ and we will see how we change those things. That is what democracy is all about,” said Paul Mashatile, chairman of the ANC in Gauteng, the most populous state.

The Democratic Alliance was white-led until last year, a barrier to its performance in elections, but a young black leader, Mmusi Maimane, 36, took over last year after the resignation of Helen Zille. Under Zille, the party consolidated and won control of Cape Town, the country’s second-biggest city.

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