After 30 years of multiracial democracy, South Africa is preparing to begin the most important transition in its post-apartheid history, confirming the ANC’s loss of a parliamentary majority in Wednesday’s general election.
For the first time in its history, the African National Congress (ANC) is expected to poll below 50% of the vote and will be forced to work together in the South African parliament to re-elect its presidential candidate Cyril Ramaphosa. second five-year mandate, and it will mark the beginning of fundamental changes in the political system, marking the “turn of the corner” of the largest economy on the African continent.
How the 400 members of the National Assembly in Cape Town agree to choose the head of state and government to lead the country from Pretoria, some 400 kilometers away, will depend on the ANC’s electoral position in Wednesday’s elections.
South Africa goes to polls for the first time without remembering apartheid
For the first time in thirty years, South Africa is going to the polls with a predominantly young population with no memory of apartheid, Mandela’s fight for freedom or the rise to power of his old nationalist movement, which is now in decline.
“Three decades after the end of apartheid, the African National Congress (ANC) is struggling to survive political liquidation,” analysts Adrian Basson and Kaanita Hunter said of next Wednesday’s elections.
According to academic Dominic Mafaka of North West University, “the majority of young people, who have shown political apathy to vote in the past and are the demographic that will determine the outcome of this election, will vote to eliminate the ANC.” from the authorities.”