The long queues of voters evoked memories of South Africa’s 1994 ballot, which ended white minority rule and introduced democracy.
However, gratitude towards the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for their historic liberation is waning.
As South Africans cast their ballots on Wednesday in the most unpredictable election in three decades of democracy, even those who take pride in Nelson Mandela’s legacy and the party’s struggle against apartheid are losing patience with the ANC’s failure to address ongoing economic and social issues.
“When we voted in 1994 it was about Mandela. This is not the Mandela era anymore, things have changed for the worse,” said Melanie Ross, 53, a teacher, speaking of the country’s first democratic president, who spent 27 years in jail for fighting apartheid.
“I had so much trust in (President) Cyril Ramaphosa but … maybe a change is good,” she said at a polling station in the working class Cape Town suburb of Kewtown, home mainly to members of the mixed race community known in South Africa as coloured.
The number of once loyal ANC supporters who now share this sentiment could significantly impact the party’s future. Pollsters predict that the ANC might lose its parliamentary majority, necessitating a coalition with one or more smaller parties.
Lwando Bangani, a 29-year-old unemployed resident of East London in the ANC’s main heartland, has been a lifelong ANC voter but is now switching to the Democratic Alliance (DA) because he wants to see the ANC drop below 50%.
Similarly, in Northcliff, a leafy Johannesburg suburb, 60-year-old consultant Nathan Samuel, a South African of Asian descent who opposed apartheid, has also been voting ANC his entire life but is reconsidering his support.
“I come from that era … The ‘Free Mandela’ campaign was a big part of my life,” he said. But now: “I want to vote change. For me, change means moving the ruling party to the opposition benches.”
Other voters said they expect the ANC would still win a majority, but expected it would be chastened by losing some support.
“Obviously the ANC won’t be thrown out but it can be reduced,” said Sibusiso Mkhwanazi, 33, in the tree-lined suburb of Craighall Park.
Despite widespread discontent over persistent poverty, inequality, high unemployment, and erratic power supply, analysts caution that predicting the extent of the ruling party’s vote loss is fraught with uncertainties. The electoral commission indicated that early turnout might exceed the 66% seen in the 2019 election—a scenario that Ipsos suggests would disadvantage the ANC.
Ebrahim Fakir of South Africa’s Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute, who predicts a slim ANC majority, remains skeptical. “We don’t know if these voters are turning out to reward or punish the ANC,” he said. “They might be turning out to punish or giving them one last chance,” and he believes the latter is more likely.
Marie Murdoch, a 76-year-old Johannesburg retiree from the brewery business, shares this view, stating that President Ramaphosa deserves “time to finish the job” after his efforts to purge the ANC of corrupt figures. “He has had a lot of trouble getting rid of the bad apples,” she noted.
Should the ANC fall below 50%, the kingmaker will depend on how many extra seats the ANC needs and which opposition parties it can align with.
Potential coalition partners include the pro-business Democratic Alliance, the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters, and the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party.
