JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s four main political parties kicked off the final weekend of campaigning on the Saturday before a possibly crucial election that could bring about the most important change in the country in three decades.
Supporters of Long-standing African National Congresswho has been in government since the end of white minority rule in 1994, gathered at a football stadium in Johannesburg to hear from the party leader and the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to speak.
The ANC is under unprecedented pressure to maintain its parliamentary majority in Africa’s most advanced country. Having seen its popularity steadily decline over the past two decades, Wednesday’s vote could be a landmark moment as the party, once led by Nelson Mandela falls below 50% of the vote for the first time.
Several polls indicate that ANC support is less than 50%, raising the possibility that have to form a national coalition. This would also be a first for South Africa’s young democracy, which was only established 30 years ago with the first all-race vote officially ending the apartheid system of racial segregation.
As thousands of supporters in the ANC’s black, green and gold colors attended his last major rally before the elections, Ramaphosa acknowledged some of the grievances that have contributed to his party’s loss of support, which include high levels of poverty and unemployment that mainly affect the situation in the country. Black majority.
“We have a plan to get more South Africans into work,” Ramaphosa said. “Throughout this campaign, in the homes of our people, in the workplace, on the streets of our towns and villages, many of our people told us about their struggles to find work and support their families.”
The main opposition Democratic Alliance The party held a rally in Cape Town, South Africa’s second largest city and stronghold. Party leader John Steenhuisen gave a speech as supporters in the DA’s blue colors held blue umbrellas.
“Democrats, friends, are you ready for change?” Steenhuisen said. The crowd shouted back “Yes!”
“Are you ready to rescue South Africa?” Steenhuisen added.
Although the ANC’s support has declined in three successive national elections and appears set to continue to decline, no party has emerged to overtake it – or even challenge it – and it is still expected to be, in some way, the largest party in these elections.
But losing its majority would be the clearest rejection yet of the famous party that led the anti-apartheid movement and is credited with leading South Africans to freedom.
Some ANC supporters at the Johannesburg rally also expressed their frustration with progress as South Africa struggles with poverty, Desperately high unemploymentsome of the worst levels of inequality in the world and other problems such as corruption, violent crime and the failure of basic government services in some places.
“We want to see employment opportunities emerging and basically general changes across the board,” said ANC supporter Ntombizonke Biyela. “We have been waiting for the ANC since 1994, it has been a long time. We have voted and voted, but we see very little progress as the people, only a few seem to benefit.”
While admitting some failures, the ANC maintained that South Africa is a better place than it was during apartheid, when a set of race-based laws oppressed the country’s black majority in favor of a small white minority. The ANC has also been widely credited with success in expanding social support, housing and other services to millions of poor South Africans in the decade after apartheid, even though critics say the ANC has recently lost its way.
“There are a lot of problems in South Africa, but no one can deny the changes that have happened since 1994, and that was because of the ANC,” said Eric Phoolo, 42, another supporter of the ruling party. We don’t have a track record of bringing change to the country.”
The fact that some voters turned away from the ANC led to a slow fracturing of South African politics. They switched allegiances to a number of different opposition parties, some of them new. South Africa has dozens of parties registered to contest next week’s elections.
South Africans vote for parties and not directly for their president in national elections. Parties then gain seats in Parliament according to their vote share and lawmakers elect the president – which is why the ANC’s loss of its majority would be so critical to 71-year-old Ramaphosa’s hopes of being re-elected for a second and last fifth term. -year term.
If the ANC drops below 50, a coalition or agreement with other parties will probably be needed to get the votes in Parliament and keep Ramaphosa, once a protégé of Mandela, as president.
The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters held their last major pre-election meeting in the northern city of Polokwane, hometown of fiery leader Julius Malema.
Former South African president and former ANC leader Jacob Zuma’s new MK Party was also campaigning in a township on the outskirts of the east coast city of Durban, although Zuma did not attend the event. Zuma, 82 years old shook up South African politics when he announced late last year that he was turning his back on the ANC and joining MK, while also fiercely criticizing the ANC under Ramaphosa.
Zuma was disqualified from standing for Parliament in the elections due to a previous criminal conviction.
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Gerald Imray reported from Cape Town and Farai Mutsaka reported from Durban.
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