By Nellie Peyton and Nqobile Dludla
QUNU, South Africa (Reuters) – In Nelson MandelaIn Qunu’s hometown, there has been no running water since 2016, jobs are scarce and crime is rising as unemployed young men and women spend the day drinking beer.
Support for the ruling African National Congress remains strong among older voters here ahead of South Africa’s elections on May 29, but fissures are appearing among those too young to remember the days when Mandela and his party won apartheid.
“I will vote for the ANC until I die,” Mzwandile Mthembu, 65, told Reuters. He has no power in his concrete shack, but he receives a retirement grant and is grateful for his freedom. “It’s not enough,” he said. “But we didn’t have anything before.”
Across the street, 37-year-old Lungile Xozwa said he was fed up with the old guard and would vote for the opposition.
“Mandela is gone. Now it’s our turn,” the community health researcher said in his small, sparsely furnished home with a bathroom in the front yard.
The challenges in Qunu, in the Eastern Cape province, have repercussions across South Africa, where unemployment is near a record level, homicides are rising and basic services, including electricity, are unreliable.
Widespread dissatisfaction is expected to cost the ANC its majority in the May vote, for the first time since 1994, and force it to form a coalition, according to polls and political analysts.
Some opinion polls indicate that the ANC’s overall support is just 39%, although it is still on track to get twice as many votes as any other party.
More recent research shows it is regaining some ground. “The ANC is growing,” said Susan Booysen, director of research at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection.
Over the years, however, electoral trends show that support for the party has declined, especially in urban areas. In the 2021 municipal elections, the ANC’s vote share in big cities like Pretoria and Johannesburg fell to around a third – its worst result ever.
In largely rural provinces like the Eastern Cape, where the ANC polled 63% in 2021, the party’s traditionally strong support is being challenged by a generational divide.
“Many young people here struggle to find jobs. Some have never had a job for 30 years,” Qunu chief Nokwanele Balizulu told Reuters. “Then they say to their mothers: ‘This ANC that you say is yours, what has it done for you?’.”
‘DOING SOMETHING THAT HAS NEVER BEEN DONE’
There are few paved roads in Qunu, where women fetch water from a stream and herd sheep.
The region was once among the small territories that the apartheid government allocated to blacks, until the ANC helped usher in multiracial democracy in 1994.
When the ANC came to power, it faced the mammoth task of extending services to around 87% of non-white citizens. Although it has had notable successes, progress has been uneven.
About 90% of South African households were connected to electricity in 2022, compared with 54% in 1994, according to household surveys, but power cuts made it worse for everyone.
The government has built about 3 million new homes for poor families, according to the Department of Human Settlements, but there are about 2.5 million families on the waiting list.
The ANC says it needs more time to finish the job, although it recognizes mistakes made during its three decades in power.
“These (mistakes) happened because we were doing something that has never been done in our country,” ANC deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane told Reuters in an interview in March.
Qunu got electricity and running water in the 1990s, but lost water around 2016 because the system was not maintained. Access to water has been declining in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo – the ANC’s biggest strongholds – since 2014, according to a 2022 government report.
“I see what the ANC is doing for other communities, but here it is scarce. We have no water and we have gravel roads. So let’s try another party,” said Phila Gogozayo, 24 years old and unemployed. She said she will vote for the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters.
‘BEST THE DEVIL YOU KNOW’
Some disaffected young people in Qunu told Reuters they had not registered to vote or were still undecided, which could limit the impact on the ANC’s support.
Nationally, no opposition movement has emerged to capture the youth vote, said independent analyst Ralph Mathekga.
“The ANC’s dominance in society is not just political, it is social,” he said. “This… isn’t easy to overcome.”
The two largest opposition parties are the Democratic Alliance, a pro-business party seen by many as representing white privilege – a charge it denies – and the Economic Freedom Fighters. There are dozens of smaller movements.
One Saturday in May, a group of women sat on the grass near a bar in Qunu, their backs against a chain-link fence.
“The only thing we do is drink alcohol because we can’t find a job,” said Thabisa Madiba, a 35-year-old unemployed woman.
Despite this, she still planned to vote for the ANC. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.”
(Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Tim Cocks and Andrew Heavens)
