South Africa local elections: ANC suffers major setback

BBC ^ | 5 August 2016 | None Listed

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South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC) has suffered its worst electoral setback since apartheid ended in 1994.

With 94% 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 and Pretoria.

But the ANC is still in the lead nationally, with 54% of the vote.

The ANC has won more than 60% of the vote at every election since the end of apartheid more than two decades ago.

Unemployment and corruption scandals surrounding President Jacob Zuma have tarnished the ANC's image.

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While there has been a lot of bad news out of South Africa, this is fundamentally good news. The Democratic Alliance (DA), a multiracial, centrist, party hitherto concentrated in the Western Cape Province, has cracked the ANCs support and held them to below 60% of the vote in nationwide municipal elections for the first time.

Significantly, they have white candidates who have won seats in majority black towns. I think that is shows that more people are sick of ANC corruption and rampant crime. It is a solid blow to the ANC establishment.

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Hopefully a harbinger that people are increasingly looking for accountability, respect and positive results from their “elected” representatives.

It seems like the elites have become even more corrupted and adopted a culture a entitlement in other countries not just the U.S.

Time to take out the trash.

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The ANC has long been a coalition of anti-apartheid idealists, communists, and would be kleptocrats.

The DA is at least positioning itself as a bona fide national alternative. South Africa, for all its flaws, has maintained some accountability in government and has not passed over the brink like Zimbabwe did.

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It didn’t help when the president publicly practiced polygamy; the idea that South Africa would be a Western country that happened to have a majority-black population quickly went out the window...