Despite performing poorly in surveys, South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa predicted on Saturday that the country’s ruling ANC will gain an overwhelming majority in the 2024 elections and will not require a coalition to rule.
“The ANC is going to achieve an outright majority… We are confident we are going to emerge victorious,” said the president of the African National Congress (ANC).
Since apartheid was abolished in 1994, the ANC, which opposed white minority rule, has chosen South Africa’s president.
South Africans will pick MPs the next year, and the winning party will then choose the president.
Ramaphosa grinned when asked about the kinds of parties the ANC could team up with to maintain its position of power.
“We are not working to be in a coalition,” he replied, on the eve of a meeting planned in a stadium in Soweto, an iconic township on the southern fringes of Johannesburg, to launch his campaign.
“The majority of people who have always voted for the ANC still see the ANC as the only vehicle for the transformation process in the country, to consolidate it and make it better.
He added: “Many people don’t see anyone doing better.”
The Communist Party (SACP) and Cosatu, the country’s largest and most influential trade union federation, will back the ANC locally, he added.
The ANC gave the battle against corruption, crime, and the advancements made since apartheid top priority during its most recent campaign in 2019.
According to him, close to 93% of South Africans now have access to electricity, up from 36% during apartheid.
“It is a great achievement, but there it still a lot to do,” he said.
