South Africa 2024 Elections LIVE Updates: More than 27 million voters are registered for the most uncertain poll since the African National Congress (ANC) led the nation out of apartheid rule
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South Africans will vote on Wednesday in what is being billed as their country’s most significant election in 30 years, and it has the potential to plunge their fledgling democracy into unfamiliar terrain.
The African National Congress party, which brought South Africa out of apartheid’s harsh white minority rule in 1994, is defending its three-decade domination. It is now the focus of a new generation of dissatisfaction in a country of 62 million people, with half of them thought to be poor.
Africa’s most sophisticated economy has some of the world’s most severe socioeconomic challenges, including one of the worst unemployment rates (32%). Some groups argue that this is an undercount.
The persisting disparity, with poverty and unemployment disproportionately hitting the Black majority, threatens to overthrow the party that vowed to abolish apartheid with the motto “a better life for all”.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who leads the ANC, has committed to “do better.” The ANC has requested more time and patience.
Any shift in the ANC’s leadership structure might have far-reaching consequences for South Africa.
After winning six consecutive national elections, numerous surveys show the ANC’s support is less than 50% ahead of this one, a historic dip. It may lose its parliamentary majority for the first time, while being largely projected to hold the most seats.
Support has been fading. The ANC won 57.5% of the vote in the last national election in 2019, its worst result to date.
If it does lose its majority, the ANC will likely face the prospect of having to form a coalition with others to stay in government and keep Ramaphosa as president. An ANC having to co-govern has never happened before.
The opposition to the ANC is fierce, but fragmented. The two biggest opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters, are not predicted to increase their vote by anything near enough to overtake the ANC.
Instead, disgruntled South Africans are moving to an array of opposition parties; more than 50 will contest the national election, many of them new. One is led by South Africa’s previous president, who seeks revenge on his former ANC colleagues.
