South Africa’s ruling ANC cedes ground to opposition in local polls
August 6, 2016, 3:12 pm

Amid rising unemployment and a stagnating economy voters have punished the ruling ANC [Image: GCIS]

With 99 per cent of votes counted from Wednesday’s local elections, the ANC was leading with the most votes overall.

The ANC has said would still try to form coalitions to govern the municipalities where it lost its majority.

“We can confirm that we are into (coalition) negotiations as we speak,” Paul Mashatile, the ANC chairman in Gauteng province, said on Saturday.

With most of the votes counted, the ANC’s nationwide support has collapsed from 61.9 per cent in 2011 to 54 per cent in 2016, while support for the largest opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) has grown from 23.9 per cent to 27.1 per cent.

The DA won the strategic Nelson Mandela Bay metro, dubbed as “home of the ANC”.

In the metro, the DA emerged as the largest party with 46.71 per cent of the vote, up from 40.13 per cent in 2011.

DA’s first black leader Mmusi Maimane on Saturday claimed victory on the national executive capital of Tshwane (Pretoria). DA has been struggling to shake off an image as a party mainly serving white interests.

Outside of the metros, the DA won 19 municipalities with an outright majority. They span three provinces, Gauteng, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape.

“Whatever happens in the next few weeks, it signals to everyone that the tide in our country is turning. Our party’s task now is to build on this growth as we head towards the 2019 provincial and national elections,” Maimane told reporters on Saturday.

A record number of voters, over 26 million, registered for the election. The elections saw 200 political parties and over 61,000 candidates participating to seek control of eight metros and more than 200 municipalities.

TBP and Agencies