World Tour: South Africa’s election wraps up

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: a World Tour special report.

Millions of voters in South Africa are lined up at polling stations today, casting votes in the country’s general election. It’s South Africa’s seventh democratic election.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And now WORLD’s Africa Reporter Onize Ohikere.

SOUND: [Rally]

ONIZE OHIKERE: Days before today’s vote, supporters of the leading Democratic Alliance opposition party crowded into a 20,000-seat stadium just outside the city of Johannesburg.

Party leader John Steenhuisen assured supporters of victory.

JOHN STEENHUISEN: On Wednesday, the ANC will lose the outright majority that it has abused for decades. It will lose the majority that it has abused to push this country into unemployment, to commit corruption and misrule. And on Wednesday, we close the chapter on the ANC rule.

SOUND: [Rally]

Earlier on Saturday, supporters of the ruling African National Congress party—or ANC—spread out across a 94,000-seater stadium in Johannesburg, all donning the party’s yellow, green, and black colors.

Here’s the country’s president and party leader Cyril Ramaphosa.

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA: We gather here carrying with us the hopes and aspirations of millions of our people across the length and the breadth of South Africa to declare that together we will do more and we will do better.

The final rallies wrapped up before Election Day, when some of South Africa’s nearly 28 million registered voters cast their ballot.

South Africans living abroad already cast their votes earlier this month.

AUDIO: [Elderly woman voting]

Meanwhile, more than 600,000 early voters, including the elderly and the sick who can’t go to the polls, voted on Monday.

They include 59-year-old Lulama Mayeki.

LULAMA MAYEKI: I am changing party, I have been voting for one party for all these years but I think the one that I am voting for now will make a big change.

South Africans don’t directly vote for a leader but instead elect members to the lower house of parliament, who are then tasked with voting for the new president. The general poll also includes electing members of provincial parliaments.

The ruling ANC party has led South Africa since 1994. That’s when the white-minority rule known as apartheid came to an end.

For the first time since then, the ANC is widely expected to score less than 50 percent of the votes—a move that could force the party to join forces with other parties.

Christopher Vandome is a senior research fellow with the Chatham House Africa Program.

CHRISTOPHER VANDOME: That's what's really striking about this election and that's why it's been billed as the most contested election for 30 years. Pluralism in every form is kind of a new thing in South Africa and that's what's really exciting about this election.

The party’s challenges come at a tough time for many South Africans. Unemployment ranks at 32 percent. Frequent power cuts to conserve available resources—a practice called load shedding—has harmed many businesses, and violent crime levels remain high.

Despite the grievances, the ruling party is still expected to emerge as the frontrunner. Vandome pointed to the party’s strong dominance in rural communities. Loyalty to the ANC is also tied to its role in leading the battle against apartheid under the leadership of the late Nelson Mandela.

VANDOME: It's because that party still has a strong resonance with people for its liberation credentials. Yes, those are weakening, and particularly for a generation of people who were born after 1994. But there's still this kind of attachment to the party for those reasons.

If the ANC vote falls below 50 percent, the party will then look to the opposition parties. Vandome says that the potential partnerships could play out differently on the national and provincial levels.

VANDOME: That's what makes this really, really difficult is that there are no natural allies here. You've got opposition parties who have been campaigning for years on, “We want to get the ANC out of office.” And so that's been their number one kind of campaign. And so they're now saying, well, okay, we've been saying for years, we want to remove the ANC from office, but now we're going to work with them.

South Africa has remained a key player in conflicts across the continent. The country has troops stationed in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

PROTESTER: Free the Palestine!

On the wider international front, South Africa has waded into the conflict between Israel and Gaza. The International Court of Justice is still deliberating on South Africa’s request for Israel to cease all military operations in Gaza. South African leaders have drawn parallels between the country’s apartheid history and the plight of Palestinians.

Students at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg also set up a pro-Palestine encampment this month.

Vadome says the opposition Democratic Alliance party backed Israel, but tempered its support over its large Muslim voter base in the Western Cape province.

VANDOME: And certainly I think from across the political spectrum, things like the seeing the South Africans lawyers in the ICJ, you know, that's a point of pride for South Africa.

The Electoral Commission will formally announce the results on Sunday.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere.

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