JOHANNESBURG — South Africans are voting Wednesday in local elections that are expected to be a tough test for the African National Congress party, which led the country out of white minority rule but has seen a consistent decline in support over the last decade.
The elections will decide who leads South Africa's eight main city municipalities as well as its 44 district and 205 local councils.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa cast his vote in Johannesburg, lauding what he said was a great turnout of people coming out to vote across the country.
“The turnout of our people, as one looks at the TV screens, the queues that are all over the country, just makes this a very special and historic day.
“My view is that we’ve never really, in years, had a local government election like this, where we have so many parties,” said Ramaphosa after casting his vote.
In total, 546 political parties were vying for votes in the elections.
Voters disgruntled with lack of basic public services
Some voters in Johannesburg told The Associated Press that they were motivated to vote by a decline in basic services.
In Alexandra township, where the road to the River Park Library voting station is filled with potholes, leaking sewage and piles of uncollected waste on the sidewalks, many still came out to cast their ballot.
“When I got my first opportunity to vote, I didn’t think it mattered. But this was important for me, you can see the kind of place we live in. Nothing works here,” said 21-year-old first time voter Karabo Mogano.
In the city of Ekurhuleni, voters at a Methodist Church voting station waited in long queues, saying they hoped their votes would change their local situation.
Parts of the city have been without water for days in the leadup to the elections.
“I started voting in 1994, then it was very exciting. But now I think so many things have changed, even my vote is changing,” said 65-year-old Tembisa resident Raymond Selepe.
Support for the ANC has steadily declined
In the last local elections in 2021, the ANC won less than 50% of the vote for the first time since the apartheid system of white minority rule ended in 1994.
The ANC then lost its 30-year parliamentary majority in national elections in 2024 — a seismic shift for Africa's biggest economy — and entered into a national coalition with the second largest party, the Democratic Alliance, and other parties. Ramaphosa, the ANC leader, was reelected president of South Africa.
But while the parties are partners in a national unity government, they are fierce rivals in the local elections. DA political veteran Helen Zille’s quest to be mayor of Johannesburg will test if the DA can win ground away from its traditional support in the second biggest city of Cape Town.
These elections will also be the first local vote contested by the MK Party, led by former South African President Jacob Zuma. Zuma resigned as president because of corruption allegations in 2018 and was expelled from the ANC in 2024 for starting his new party.
It made a surprisingly strong debut in the 2024 national elections to become the third biggest party in Parliament and has strong support in Zuma's home province of KwaZulu-Natal in the east of the country.
Voters do not directly elect mayors but choose members of the councils that run cities and pick the mayors.
Polls are expected to close at 9 p.m. on Wednesday.
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