JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s four main parties launched their final weekend of campaigning on Saturday ahead of a pivotal election that could bring the most significant change to the country in the past 30 years.
Supporters of the African National Congress (ANC), which has been in power since the end of white-minority rule in 1994, gathered at a soccer stadium in Johannesburg to hear a speech by party leader and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The ANC is under unprecedented pressure to maintain its parliamentary majority in Africa’s most developed country. Its approval rating has steadily declined over the past two decades, and Wednesday’s election could mark a landmark moment as the party once led by Nelson Mandela falls below 50 percent of the national vote for the first time, though it is still widely expected to win the largest share of the vote.
Some opinion polls have put the ANC’s approval rating below 50 percent, raising the possibility that it may be forced to form a national coalition government – a first for South Africa’s young democracy, founded 30 years ago by the first all-race vote that formally ended apartheid.
At the final big rally before the election, which drew thousands of supporters wearing the ANC’s black, green and gold uniforms, President Ramaphosa acknowledged some of South Africa’s grievances, including high rates of poverty and unemployment that mainly affect the country’s black majority.
“We have a plan to get more South Africans to work,” President Ramaphosa said. “Throughout this campaign, so many South Africans have told us in their homes, in their workplaces and on the streets of our towns and villages that they are struggling to find work and provide for their families.”
The main opposition Democratic Alliance Party held a rally in South Africa’s second-largest city and its home base of Cape Town. Party leader John Steenhausen spoke, and supporters carried the party’s blue flag and blue umbrellas.
“Democrats, are you ready for change?” Steenhausen asked. The crowd chanted back, “Yes!”
Although the ANC’s approval rating has declined in three consecutive national elections and is expected to continue to decline, no other party has emerged to overtake or challenge the ANC.
But losing its majority would be the clearest rejection yet of the party famously credited with spearheading the anti-apartheid movement and leading South Africans to freedom.
Some ANC supporters have expressed frustration as the country of 62 million people struggles with poverty, sky-high unemployment, some of the world’s highest levels of inequality, 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 the ANC acknowledges some failures, it points out that South Africa is a much 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 services to millions of poor South Africans in the post-apartheid decade, but critics say it has lost its way in recent times.
“South Africa has a lot of problems but no one denies the change that has happened since 1994 and that’s thanks to the ANC,” said Eric Phuolo, 42, a ruling party supporter.
Instead of a unified opposition, South African politics is slowly fracturing as some voters turn away from the ANC. Frustrated South Africans are flocking to a variety of opposition parties, some of which are new, with dozens of parties set to run in next week’s 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 vote, and then elect the president. So a loss of the ANC’s majority would undermine hopes that the 71-year-old president, Ramaphosa, can be smoothly re-elected for a second and final five-year term.
If the ANC’s approval rating falls below 50 percent, it will likely need to reach an agreement with other parties to find the votes in parliament to re-elect Ramaphosa, a one-time protégé of Mr Mandela.
The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters held their last big rally before the election in the northern city of Polokwane, home of fiery leader Julius Malema. “South Africans have to decide if they want to lose their jobs,” Mr Malema said.
The new party MK, led by former South African president and former ANC leader Jacob Zuma, was also campaigning in townships on the outskirts of the east coast city of Durban, but Zuma did not attend the rally. The 82-year-old Zuma shocked South African politics at the end of last year when he announced he was turning his back on the ANC and joining MK, a move that sharply criticised the ANC under Ramaphosa’s administration.
Zuma has been disqualified from standing for parliamentary elections due to his criminal record, but MK is still allowed to use his likeness as party leader and continues to campaign. His daughter, Duduzile Zuma Sambudla, attended the rally, where MK supporters chanted “Run, run, Ramaphosa!”
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Gerald Imhle reported from Cape Town and Farai Mutsaka from Durban.
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