JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s four main political parties launched the final weekend of election campaigning on Saturday. Possibly important election It could bring about the most significant change to the country in 30 years.
Supporters The African National Congress, which has been in power for many yearsSouth Africa’s opposition coalition, which has been in power since the end of white minority rule in 1994, gathered at a soccer stadium in Johannesburg to hear speeches from their party leaders and South Africans. President Cyril Ramaphosa talk.
The ANC is under unprecedented pressure to maintain its parliamentary majority in Africa’s most developed country, after its popularity steadily declined over the past two decades and Wednesday’s vote marked a turning point for the party that was once considered the strongest in the country. Nelson Mandela It was the first time that turnout fell below 50%.
Some opinion polls put the ANC’s approval rating at less than 50 percent. A national coalition must be formedIt also marks a first for South Africa’s young democracy, which formally ended its first cross-racial vote 30 years ago. Apartheid System Of racism.
As thousands of supporters dressed in the ANC’s black, green and gold uniforms gathered for the final big rally before the election, Ramaphosa acknowledged some of the grievances contributing to the party’s loss of support, including high rates of poverty and unemployment that mainly affect the country’s black majority.
“We have a plan to put more South Africans to work,” President Ramaphosa said. “Throughout this campaign, South Africans have told us in their homes, in their workplaces and on the streets of our towns and villages that so many of them are struggling to find work and provide for their families.”
Main opposition Democratic Alliance The party held a rally in Cape Town, South Africa’s second largest city and its base, where leader John Steenhausen spoke and supporters in blue DA uniforms held up blue umbrellas.
“Democrats, are you ready for change?” Steenhausen asked. The crowd chanted back, “Yes!”
“Are you ready to save South Africa?” Steenhuisen added.
The ANC’s support has fallen in three consecutive national elections and is expected to continue to decline, but no other party has emerged to overtake or challenge the ANC, and it is widely expected that the ANC will be the largest party in some form in this election as well.
But losing the majority meant leading the anti-apartheid movement; Leading South Africans to Freedom.
Some ANC supporters at the Johannesburg rally expressed frustration with progress as South Africa struggles with poverty. Unemployment is very highsome of the worst levels of inequality in the world, as well as problems with corruption, violent crime and the failure of basic government services in some areas.
“We want job opportunities and basically general change in everything,” said ANC supporter Ntombizonke Biela. “We have been waiting for the ANC since 1994. It’s been a long time. We have voted so many times but as a people we have seen very little progress and only a special few are benefiting.”
While acknowledging some failures, the ANC maintains that South Africa is a better country than it was under apartheid, when a series of race-based laws favoured a white minority and oppressed the black majority. The ANC is also widely credited with successfully expanding social assistance, housing and other services to millions of poor South Africans in the decade after apartheid, but critics have said in recent days that it has lost its way.
“South Africa has a lot of problems, but no one denies the changes that have happened since 1994, and that’s thanks to the ANC,” said Eric Phuolo, 42, a ruling party supporter. “Other parties don’t have the track record of bringing change to the country.”
South African politics is slowly fracturing as some voters are drifting away from the ANC and switching to various opposition parties, some of which are new. South Africa has dozens of parties running in next week’s general election.
South Africans don’t vote directly for a president in national elections, but for political parties, which get seats in parliament according to the popular vote, and then elect the president. That’s why the ANC’s loss of majority is so crucial to the 71-year-old Ramaphosa’s hopes of being re-elected for a second and final five-year term.
If the ANC falls below 50 seats, it would need to form or agree a coalition government with other parties to get the votes in parliament to keep Ramaphosa, a one-time Mandela protege, in office.
The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters held their last major rally before the election in the northern city of Polokwane. fiery leader, Julius Malema;
South Africa’s former president and former ANC leader Jacob Zuma’s new party, MK, was also campaigning in a town on the outskirts of the east coast city of Durban, but Zuma did not attend the event. Zuma at 82 He shocked South African politics late last year when he announced he was turning his back on the ANC and joining MK, a move that came as a fierce criticism of the ANC under Ramaphosa’s government.
Zuma is disqualified from standing for parliamentary elections due to his criminal record.
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Gerald Imlay reported from Cape Town and Farai Mutsaka from Durban.
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