On the 29th of this month, the people of South Africa will be holding their 7th provincial elections since 1994.
This years election is going to be very different from the ones that were held in 2019, 2014 and 2009 since the party in leadership (African National Congress) is losing the support it has had from the South African people since the end of Apartheid.
In South Africa, the President is elected by the National Assembly members who are elected every after 5 years and parties are granted seats in proportion to the number of popular votes they get and the unique thing in this years elections, even independent candidates have been allowed to vie for seats in the National Assembly.
The raw political picture in S.A clearly shows that the African National Congress might not be able to win the needed 50% of the National Assembly vote since some of it’s members are now with their former President , Jacob Zuma under his party uMkhonto weSiswe (MK).
This is backed by the party’s failure to deliver on some of it’s promises they made with the electorate, the high unemployment rates and the corruption scandals the ANC government has been entangled in for the last 25 years.
John Steenhuisen’s Democratic Alliance, the leading opposition party has it’s hopes high for winning the highest number of seats in the National Assembly and they have even manged to form the Multi Party Charter that has parties like Inkatha Freedom Party, United Independent Movement, African Christian Democratic Party, Freedom Front Plus and a few other opposition parties.
DA’s only short coming is in their support for Israel and the ANC government is publicly known to be in support of Palestine.
When Raid David was in Surrey Estate in Cape Town for a panel discussion with members from other political parties, the 60 year old was booed by the people and one of them was heard saying “We cannot allow supporters of baby killers to talk to us.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress is likely to find another party and they form a coalition government if they don’t want to end their 30 years rule.
52 political parties have qualified to be on the ballot, but real competition is among 5 parties and two of them were founded in 2022 and 2023.
The first three parties have always had the same strength within the National Assembly and these parties are ; African National Congress, Democratic Alliance and Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters.
In the two newly formed parties, there’s Mmusi Maimane’s Build One South Africa and Mmusi is also a former leader of the Democratic Alliance from 2015 – 2019. The second party is Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSiswe and President Zuma also served as the leader of ANC from 2007 – 2017 and President of South Africa from 2009 – 2018.
