CAPE TOWN, South Africa — South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party took a beating in Wednesday’s elections and must form a national coalition for the first time since the end of apartheid three decades ago, initial results released Friday showed.
The ANC had slightly under 42 percent of the vote with two-thirds of ballots counted at 3 p.m. — more than any of the other 50 some parties competing, but significantly short of the 50 percent needed to govern on its own. The results could trigger an internal party challenge to President Cyril Ramaphosa, after the worst showing for the ANC since Nelson Mandela led it to victory in the nation’s first fully democratic election in 1994.
Results could still swing slightly as votes from large metropolitan areas were still coming in. A final tally is expected Saturday.
The White-led, liberal Democratic Alliance took just under 23 percent of the vote, suggesting that gaffes by party leaders had dented its promotion of itself as the party of good governance. DA leader John Steenhuisen, whose party looks set to hold on to the Western Cape around Cape Town, said the result was “a great day for democracy.”
“People have now chosen to punish a government that has failed to deliver by removing their majority,” he said. “There are choppy waters ahead, but for the first time in 30 years, no single party has a majority. As a Democrat, it delights me from my head to my toes.”
The election’s real winner, in third place with 12 percent of the vote, was the new uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MK) — meaning “Spear of the Nation” — which was founded last year as a vehicle for former president Jacob Zuma, once an ANC stalwart.
Although Zuma heads the MK Party, a court disqualified him from serving in Parliament after he was given a 15-month jail sentence for contempt of court in 2021. The constitution bars anyone with a prison sentence of 12 months or longer from holding a parliamentary seat.
MK is named after the ANC’s military wing during the apartheid years, and represents the ANC’s Zulu tribal faction. Zuma, who is Zulu, headed the ANC while president from 2009 until corruption allegations force him he to step down in 2018. He was succeeded by Ramaphosa, and relations between the two men are acrimonious.
Political analyst and author Mpumelelo Mkhabela said there appeared to be an internal battle over who should lead the MK Party — Zuma or founder Jabulani Khumalo.
“It’s a party that has no culture of any leadership, elective conference. They have no culture of decision-making — everything centers on the personality of Jacob Zuma,” Mkhabela said. It is still unclear if that cult of personality could deliver effective decision-making, he said.
MK’s strong showing came “from an angle we didn’t really expect,” Gwede Mantashe, the ANC national chairman, told the media Thursday. “That was the biggest surprise of these elections.”
The populist Economic Freedom Fighters party, whose supporters often wear red berets and advocate the enforced nationalization of mines and White-owned farms, came in fourth with 9.5 percent of the vote. Its founder, Julius Malema, was head of the ANC Youth League before he split off in 2011.
The national electoral commission says voter turnout was nearly 60 percent, just under the two-thirds turnout in the 2019 election when the ANC took 57 percent of the vote, its previous worst performance.
The ANC’s failure to stamp out rampant corruption in its ranks, or tackle high unemployment, violent crime and deteriorating services, including chronic electricity blackouts, has sharply eroded its support, which has been steadily declining for years.
Any of the big parties could get the ANC over the 50 percent mark, but all are likely to demand substantial concessions.
“They can’t have policy continuity,” said Pauline Bax, Africa Program deputy director at the International Crisis Group. Nationally, a partnership with the DA might mean a swing to the right on economic policy, and a partnership with either MK or the EFF would probably demand a swing to the left.
Internationally, the DA is the most pro-Western partner, she said, and MK or the EFF would probably favor strengthening the ANC’s already friendly ties with Russia. Moscow was a key ally during the ANC’s liberation struggle.
“The Democratic Alliance is much more pro-Israel and pro-Ukraine,” Bax said. “But the question is whether foreign policy is the most important thing for the DA.”
Both MK and the EFF want to nationalize mines and land, she pointed out, which would probably disrupt the commercial relationship with investors and the United States. South Africa is the biggest U.S. trading partner in Africa.
“There are allegations that Zuma has taken money from pro-Russian sources,” she said, and a daughter was also an early promoter of the #IStandWithPutin online campaign, according to the Center for Information Resilience. Bloomberg News reported last month that Russian accounts were amplifying Zuma’s campaign.
South Africa is leading the global condemnation of Israel’s war in Gaza by spearheading the case against it at the International Criminal Court, but that is unlikely to be affected by the election.