What’s happening?
South Africans are going to the polls on 8 May in a general election, 25 years after the country’s first free polls following the fall of the racist and repressive apartheid regime.
The African National Congress (ANC), in power since 1994, will almost certainly win another majority, and its leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, will therefore continue as president, the office he has held since 2018, when his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, resigned.
Almost 50 parties will compete for the favour of 26.75 million eligible voters. The ANC is predicted to gain somewhere between 54% and 61% of the vote.
The Democratic Alliance, a centre-right party with a power base in the west, could win as much as 22%. The populist far-left Economic Freedom Fighters are expected to take about 10%. The vote share of both the ANC and DA has declined in recent polls.
There are 1.3 million more eligible voters than for the last general election in 2014 but almost 10 million people – mostly young – have not registered to vote.
Why does the election matter if the ANC will win whatever?
The stakes are high for the party and the country.
The ANC, which led the struggle for freedom in South Africa and has been in power since, is increasingly unpopular. Its image has been tarnished by successive corruption scandals involving senior officials and a long-term failure to deliver basic services of sufficient quality to satisfy voters. The party’s credentials from the anti-apartheid struggle also resonate less with younger citizens of the “rainbow nation”. It needs to reverse, or at least slow, its decline or it faces eventual eclipse.
(May 9, 1994) Taking power
ANC wins South Africa’s first democratic elections, making Nelson Mandela the country’s first black president.
(June 14, 1999) Second election win
Mandela steps down after one term. The ANC wins the second democratic election with Thabo Mbeki as president. The MP Patricia de Lille presents a dossier containing numerous allegations of bribery relating to a 70bn rand (£5.44bn) arms deal.
(July 9, 2000) Mbeki and Aids 'denalism'
Mbeki is criticised for a speech that appears to underplay the threat of HIV. Campaigners will later accuse him of Aids “denialism” that costs hundreds of thousands of lives.
(April 25, 2003) Winnie Mandela convicted
Winnie Mandela, the ex-wife of Nelson Mandela, is convicted of theft and fraud.
(April 14, 2004) Third election
The ANC is re-elected.
(August 21, 2008) Mbeki resigns
Mbeki is ousted at the Polokwane conference and replaced by Kgalema Motlanthe as caretaker president.
(January 1, 2009) Jacob Zuma
Corruption allegations are dropped against Jacob Zuma. The ANC is re-elected with Zuma as president.
(December 18, 2012) Zuma's victory
Zuma is re-elected as ANC leader.
(December 5, 2013) Death of Mandela
South Africa mourns as Nelson Mandela dies in December aged 95. Simmering discontent over Zuma’s presidency – he is booed at Mandela’s memorial service – rises to the surface.
(January 1, 2014) Zuma and corruption
In March an anti-corruption watchdog orders Zuma to repay £13.7m worth of state funds he spent on lavishly refurbishing his private home. In May the ANC is re-elected for a fifth successive time with 62% of the national vote, down slightly from 2009. A generation of “born frees” – who never lived under apartheid – vote for the first time.
(August 3, 2016) Local election setback
The ANC is punished by voters at municipal elections, losing control of key cities.
(December 18, 2017) Cyril Ramaphosa
Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma’s deputy and standard bearer of the ANC’s reformist wing, is elected party leader, edging out Zuma’s ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
(February 15, 2018) Zuma resigns
Amid outrage prompted by new evidence of improper influence on government enjoyed by business tycoons and under intense pressure from the ANC’s ruling committee, Zuma resigns as president. Ramaphosa is quickly elected his successor by a parliamentary vote.
(May 8, 2019) Another election win?
South Africans go to the polls in general election on 8 May.
Analysts say the elections could mark a turning point if Ramaphosa wins a big enough mandate to take on enemies within the ANC and push through major reforms needed to get economic growth going again. If the ANC performs badly, he could be vulnerable as leader to an attempt to force him out, just as he ousted his predecessor Zuma.
What are the biggest issues?
There are huge problems at a macro level but South Africans are most concerned about those to do with the quality of their daily lives: approximately half of the adult population live below the poverty line; violent crime is a concern for everyone, but the poor suffer most; unemployment is extremely high – at 27%; income inequality is the worst globally.
Many South Africans still lack adequate electricity and sanitation. Many also are without houses, and that is one of the reasons land reform has become a hot topic, even if the focus of discussion has been the redistribution of farmland. There are deep concerns about the quality of underfunded public schools, and the cost of further education.
A series of judicial and other investigations have also exposed the degree to which political life, the party and key South African institutions were eroded during Zuma’s nine-year rule.
Who is Ramaphosa and what is he trying to do?
The 66-year-old is a charismatic former labour leader who was once seen as a potential heir to Nelson Mandela. After losing out in factional battles within the ANC in the 1990s, he made a fortune in business. Known as a pragmatist, Ramaphosa returned to frontline politics, serving as deputy president under Zuma from 2014. Three years later he took over the leadership of the ANC in a hotly contested internal election and then forced Zuma out of the national presidency, describing a “new dawn” for the party and the country in a later interview with the Guardian.
What happened last time?
The ANC won 62.2% share of the vote in the 2014 national election, giving the party 249 seats and a clear majority in the 400 seat parliament. However, the vote share was significantly down on the record 70% it took 10 years earlier.
In 2016, voters rebuked the ANC in municipal elections, when it took 55% of the vote, down more than 10 percentage points on 2006. Opposition parties consolidated their hold in major cities including Tshwane, the administrative capital, and Johannesburg, the commercial centre.
Read more … ‘They don’t get it’: scarred ANC faces voter anger
