South Africa’s ruling ANC on Friday cemented its lead in general polls, setting the stage for a Jacob Zuma presidency where he will face pressing demands from the poor in a sagging economy.
Zuma‘s supporters already started celebrating, singing and dancing in the streets of Johannesburg on Thursday night, with a new party set for Friday evening.
“We know that counting is still going on, but we can smell a 70 percent” majority, Zuma told 2,000 supporters from a stage where he danced with singers.
With 13.3 million ballots counted, the ANC had around 67 percent of the vote on Friday as millions of supporters put their faith in Zuma despite corruption charges dropped just two weeks ago.
The ANC seemed poised to win another two-thirds majority in the next parliament that would elect the popular but controversial leader as the new head of state in early May.
Final results might not arrive until Saturday, but the outcome seemed certain as the threat posed by a breakaway group, the Congress of the People (COPE), appeared to have fizzled out.
The splinter party formed by supporters of former president Thabo Mbeki, Zuma’s arch rival, looked to have taken nearly eight percent.
The main opposition Democratic Alliance was at around 16 percent, but looked set to grab the Western Cape province, which includes Cape Town, for the first time.
South African newspapers on Friday said Zuma was undoubtedly the next president but that he had Nelson Mandela’s legacy to uphold amid massive challenges.
“If he is not yet frightened by the magnitude of unemployment, poverty and crime, and by faltering health and education systems, then he will be soon,” respected weekly the Mail and Guardian wrote in its editorial.
“He can go down as the man who betrayed Madiba’s (Mandela) legacy or the man who delivered his promise.”
The main question now was whether the ANC would hold on to its two-thirds majority, which the party won outright five years ago and previously held in a coalition agreement, allowing it to make changes to the constitution.
“It’s really one of those cliffhangers of this election,” political analyst Susan Booysen told AFP, but added that the party has yet to use its supermajority to impose major amendments.
Zuma — whose legal woes include being fired as deputy president, a rape acquittal, and the recent dropping of graft charges due to political meddling — will enter office under intense scrutiny that bodes well for clean governance, she said.
“Mr Zuma knows he’s so watched. There are few presidents anywhere in the world that come into power so watched,” said Booysen.
“The question marks are really never going to go away. But it is going to be business and let’s move forward from now.”
Dissatisfaction with public services and political crises over the past few years, as well as the scandal around Zuma, are credited with luring a record 23 million people to register to vote.
Initial estimates indicated turnout at about 77 percent.
Zuma has experienced massive support from his mainly working-class devotees who hope the populist leader is their ticket to improved public service and more jobs.
The son of a housekeeper is seen as the antithesis of Mbeki who managed impressive economic growth, but failed to tackle the world’s largest HIV rates while minimising the nation’s staggering crime rate.
Zuma was a stalwart of the struggle against white minority rule, and spent a decade jailed alongside Mandela on Robben Island.
He became deputy to former president Mbeki, but the two developed a fierce rivalry, and Mbeki sacked him in 2005.
Zuma seized the leadership of the ANC away from Mbeki in December 2007, and nine months later the party dismissed Mbeki as president.
source.standard.ke
