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ANC supporters celebrating party victory in the general elections. (Reuters) |
PRETORIA — The ruling African National Congress (ANC) swept the South African general elections, but failed to secure absolute majority to make sweeping constitutional changes.
"The ANC has been given a clear and resounding mandate," senior ANC official Matthews Phosa told thousands of cheering supporters.
Final results of the April 21 vote showed that the ANC took 65.9 percent of the vote, fall short of the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) won 16.68 percent, while the upstart Congress of the People (COPE) landed third with 7.42 percent.
Inkatha Freedom Party support waned to 4.56 percent of the vote from 6.97 percent in 2004.
Electoral officials said the turnout was 77.3 percent, a little higher than in 2004. The final results will be officially announced later on Saturday.
The ANC also swept the provincial elections, except for the Western Cape that is home to Cape Town, where the DA won a majority for the first time.
"Immediately after the counting finishes, the real work starts," Paul Mashatile, premier of Gauteng, the country's economic hub, told jubilant supporters.
"We must all roll (up) our sleeves and start working."
"Those who live in shacks or have no jobs want us to work for them. We must deliver," he said.
The election win will put ANC leader Jacob Zuma at the doorstep to the presidency.
Zuma was expected to arrive at the results centre later in the day to receive the final vote count and declare victory.
He is now certain to become president when the new parliament convenes early next month to elect the new president, riding a wave of support from the country's poor who backed his pledges to create more jobs and expand the social safety net.
Challenge
Analysts believe that the ANC will face a more powerful opposition in the new parliament.
"The ANC has to worry more about the opposition now than it has had to do since democracy," political analyst Steven Friedman told Reuters.
"The effect of them not getting the two-thirds, despite the euphoria, really underlines that there has been a drop in the ANC vote."
The DA is expected to be the emerging force in the new parliament.
"The DA has retained its status as the champion of the minorities, in the same way as the ANC has maintained its status as the champion of the majority," analyst Aubrey Matshiqi told Business Day.
DA supporters celebrated in Western Cape after the party took control in the region, where colored people of mixed race descent outnumber black Africans.
"We will try to govern as well as we can to show that life is better for everybody under the DA," party leader Helen Zille said.
Political analyst Adam Habib said the DA's win would be a big boost for the party that is trying to shake its "white" image and grew its support across the country.
"What the DA is seen as is a party which is efficient, robust, critical, representing the interests of minority communities," he said.
Race plays a complex and often surprising role in Western Cape politics.
Despite being forcibly removed from their homes and suffering under white-minority rule, the colored vote gave the province to the apartheid National Party, rather than the ANC.
At the time, many shared the fears of the white community about life under a black government, said researcher Mohammed Adhikari of the University of Cape Town.
He said coloreds have always been in the middle, seeing themselves as "superior to Africans, more civilized and assimilated into western culture."
On the flip side Africans saw them as less racially pure, while they got a higher status under apartheid and preference in jobs and services -- a status quo many say has yet to change, he said.
"They feel alienated in the new South Africa," Adhikari said.
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