As results trickle in from South Africa’s national elections, early projections show that the African National Congress (ANC) is on course to lose the parliamentary majority it has held for three decades, in what would be the most significant political shift in the country’s post-apartheid era.
If the trend continues to follow the early results released by the electoral commission, the ANC will be forced to enter a deal with at least another political party in what analysts say will expose the country to unprecedented political volatility shortly.
The early results showed the ANC and the Democratic Alliance (DA) neck-and-neck on about 34% each in the key province of Gauteng, which includes the country’s business capital Johannesburg and the sprawling townships of Soweto and Alexandra.
In KwaZulu-Natal, a populous eastern province where the major city of Durban is located, the new uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), led by former President, Jacob Zuma is performing strongly, with 41.7% of the vote versus 20.1% for the ANC.
While the ANC is still projected to be the largest party, and President Cyril Ramaphosa is likely to remain as the country’s president, there is the possibility of a poor electoral showing weighing in on his leadership, rendering him susceptible to challenges within party ranks.
Under South Africa’s constitution, the newly elected National Assembly will elect the next president.
The ANC has comfortably won every poll since the watershed 1994 election, which marked the end of apartheid and the ascent of Nelson Mandela as president.
However, those days appear to be fading into the horizon as the ANC’s support has waned over the years due to disillusionment over issues like high unemployment and crime, frequent power blackouts, corruption and socio-economic inequality.
According to the country’s electoral law, the umpire has seven days to declare full results, but in practice, it is usually earlier. In the 2019 elections, voting began on a Wednesday like this year and final results were declared three days later.
The new parliament must convene within 14 days of final results being declared and its first act must be to elect the nation’s president.
This means that if the ANC is confirmed to have lost its majority as it is expected to, there could be an unprecedented fortnight of intense political negotiations to agree on how to form a new government.