{"id":237062,"date":"2016-08-05T16:26:08","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T16:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=237062"},"modified":"2016-08-05T16:26:08","modified_gmt":"2016-08-05T16:26:08","slug":"south-africa-local-elections-anc-suffers-major-setback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=237062","title":{"rendered":"South Africa local elections: ANC suffers major setback"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has suffered its worst electoral setback since apartheid ended in 1994.<\/p>\n

With 96% of the votes counted after Wednesday’s municipal elections, the party has lost the key battleground of Nelson Mandela Bay to the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA).<\/p>\n

The two parties are in a close fight for Johannesburg and Pretoria.<\/p>\n

But the ANC is still in the lead nationally, with 54% of the vote.<\/p>\n

The ANC has won more than 60% of the vote at every national election since the end of apartheid more than two decades ago.<\/p>\n

Unemployment and corruption scandals surrounding President Jacob Zuma have tarnished the ANC’s image.<\/p>\n

Named after ANC liberation hero and South Africa’s first democratically elected president, the loss of Nelson Mandela Bay is a big blow to the party.<\/p>\n

Many of the leaders of the struggle against apartheid come from the area.<\/p>\n

\"Democratic<\/span><\/figure>\n

The DA, which took 46.5% compared to the ANC’s 41% in Nelson Mandela Bay, says it is in talks with other parties to form a coalition in the municipality on South Africa’s southern coast.<\/p>\n

Its leader Mmusi Maimane said Nelson Mandela Bay had voted for change.<\/p>\n

“I think that to me says that our message got through – it says our people heard us and South Africans still believe in a dream of a non-racial South Africa, South Africans still want our country to prosper,” he said.<\/p>\n

The ANC has conceded defeat in Nelson Mandela Bay after initially saying it was going to challenge the result.<\/p>\n

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa promised the party would learn from the experience: “They think that we are arrogant, they think that we are self-centred, they think that we are self-serving, and I’d like to dispute all of that and say we are a listening organisation.”<\/p>\n

It looks like no party will win an outright majority in the economic hubs of Johannesburg or Tshwane, which includes the capital, Pretoria, and coalition negotiations are already underway.<\/p>\n

BBC South Africa analyst Farouk Chothia says the ANC’s urban vote has collapsed with both black middle and working classes switching to DA.<\/p>\n

It is a historic moment as even in the Eastern Cape province working class people rooted in the trade union movement have voted for the DA, he says.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has suffered its worst electoral setback since apartheid ended in 1994. With 96% of the votes counted after Wednesday’s municipal elections, the party has lost the key battleground of Nelson Mandela Bay to the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA). The two parties are in a close fight for Johannesburg […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=237062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=237062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=237062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=237062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}