South Africa General Election: Ruling ANC Not Gets Majority

• By Thetripurapost Desk, Cape Town
• Jun 01, 2024
• 231

General elections were held in South Africa on 29 May. According to news agency Reuters, 97.25% votes have been counted so far. 

In this, Nelson Mandela's party African National Congress has got the highest 40.13% votes, but it could not get the 50% votes required to form the government.

This is the first time in 30 years that the African National Congress (ANC) has not got a majority. At the same time, the party of former South African President Jacob Zuma, who lost power due to a sex scandal and corruption charges, has come in third. He has received 15% of the votes.

According to media reports, he can play the role of a kingmaker. Jacob Zuma has made inroads into ANC votes in many areas. Due to this, ANC failed to get a majority. In fact, after being expelled from ANC in 2018, Zuma formed his own party MK in 2019.

For the first time in 30 years,
the main opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) has got 21.72% votes to form a coalition government. The left-wing party EFF has got around 9.37% votes so far. This time, the maximum number of 70 parties contested in South Africa. 

There are around 2.78 crore voters in the country. There are 400 seats in the South African Parliament. Any party needs 201 seats to form a government.

If the ruling ANC does not get a majority after the election, then President Cyril Ramaphosa will have to get the support of other allies. In such a situation, a coalition government can be formed in the country for the first time.

Experts believe that the ANC party, which has lost about 18 percent of its voting share in this election, now has only two options. 

Either it should compromise with Jacob Zuma, who has been expelled from the party on corruption charges, or it should form a government with the far-left party EFF.

.Black people were not allowed to vote in South Africa before 1994. People had struggled for years against the system based on apartheid. After its end, the first fully democratic elections were held in the country. The first parliamentary elections were held in South Africa in 1994.

In these, Nelson Mandela was leading the African National Congress. ANC got 62.5 percent votes. ANC got the biggest success in the year 2004. Then they got around 70 percent votes. Since then the vote percentage of the party has continued to decrease. In the last election held in 2019, the African National Congress got the lowest 57.50 percent votes.

The ANC has won all the six elections held so far in South Africa. This time the seventh general election is going to be held in South Africa. Before voting on Wednesday, President Cyril Ramaphosa had called it the most important election in the history of the country

There is a lot of pressure on bothtg President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC to get a majority. Many surveys have estimated that the African National Congress (ANC) will not be able to touch the 50 percent majority mark this time. The reason for this is that the biggest party ANC is surrounded by many difficulties. 

Actually, there are serious allegations of corruption against the leaders of the ruling party. 

Along with this, South Africa is facing record unemployment and unprecedented power crisis.

In South Africa, parties get seats according to their vote share. After this, the MPs of the party that gets the majority elect the President of the country. In South Africa, a person can become President a maximum of two times. Cyril Ramaphosa had earlier become President in 2019. 

Ramaphosa, who entered student politics, then business and then politics, is once again a contender for the post of President.

The second strongest contender in South Africa is the Democratic Alliance (DA). This party got 20.77 percent votes in the last election. DA is led by a white leader John Stevehusen.

Apart from the African National Congress, some other big parties are in the race to gain power. The interesting thing is that some of these leaders have been expelled from the African National Congress itself. Former President and ANC's veteran leader Jacob Zuma and Julius Malema are the leaders of a party called Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF). This party got 10.80 percent votes in the 2019 elections.

Like Jacob Zuma, Malema was also the leader of ANC earlier, but he was expelled for 5 years in 2012 due to anti-party activities. At that time Jacob Zuma's government was in power in the country and Malema was his staunch critic. After this, in 2013, Malema formed a party named EFF.

The main opposition party in South Africa, DA, aims to
stop the ANC, which has been ruling for 30 years, from gaining power at any cost. Therefore, it is trying to form a coalition by talking to other opposition parties.

Opposition parties feel that this is the most opportune moment to break the dominance of the ANC. 51 parties are in the fray for this. However, doing so will be a big challenge for all parties. The main opposition party DA is known for its populist decisions.

The third largest party EEF is of left ideology. This party advocates aggressively distributing the wealth of the country among the people to improve the economic condition of the blacks. 

There is an old rivalry between the leader of this party Julius Malema and the leader of former President Jacob Zuma.

It remains to be seen whether these two parties will be able to overcome these bitterness to remove the ANC or not. Apart from this, many new and small 
ties are in the fray this time, whose aim is to strengthen their position by serving the interests of ethnic and social groups.