The African National Congress has won a fresh mandate to rule South Africa following hotly contested general elections on 7 May that confirmed the strengthening of prominent opposition groups.
Final results announced by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) chairperson Pansy Tlakula at the National Results Operation Centre in Pretoria on 10 May showed that with all 22,000 voting districts counted, the ANC had 62.1 percent of the popular vote, which was several percentage points lower than the 65.9 percent it got in the last elections in 2009.
The ruling party garnered more than 11.4 million votes of the 18.7 million people who voted during the fifth democratic elections since the end of apartheid.
The main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) was a distant second, with about 4.1 million ballots or 22.2 percent of the popular vote.
This was a major improvement over the 16.7 percent that the DA got in 2009.
The eight-month-old Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema won about 6.4 percent of the vote in a development that could be viewed to reflect the growing discontent with the ANC’s socio-economic policies.
The EFF election campaign rode on the promise of addressing some of the concerns of poor South Africans such as reducing unemployment, fighting corruption and redistribution of resources.
Overall voter turnout was 73.4 percent this year compared to 77.3 percent in 2009.
The IEC results tally showed that 13 of the 29 political parties that contested the 2014 general elections received enough votes to have seats in the National Assembly.
For a political party to obtain one seat in the National Assembly it needed about 0.25 percent of the national vote, or between 37,000 and 50,000 actual votes, depending on voter turnout.
The ANC won the most seats in the National Assembly, acquiring 249 seats out of a total 400 seats. This was 15 seats lower than the 264 seats it got five years ago and much lower than the 297 seats it controlled after the 2004 elections.
The DA obtained 89 seats, up from 67 in 2009. This means the main opposition party has nearly doubled its seats in the National Assembly f rom the 47 it controlled in 2004.
The EFF got 25 seats while the Inkatha Freedom Party won 10.
The first sitting of the National Assembly is set for 21 May during which the newly elected Members of Parliament will be sworn-in and the Speaker and Deputy Speaker will be elected.
The president of South Africa will be elected during the same sitting of the National Assembly.
Under the South African Constitution, the leader of the party with the majority seats in the National Assembly will elected president of the country, which means that Jacob Zuma will be reelected president of South Africa.
According to a timetable provided by the IEC, the president-elect will be sworn-in on 24 May.
Zuma dedicated the ANC victory to the late anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela’s memory and pledged to form a government “that will serve all the people of our country, regardless of who they voted for.”
“We must now unite and work together to move South Africa forward,” he said following the announcement of the final results.
Zuma said the victory also reaffirmed that the ANC remained “the only true hope for the majority of our people, particularly the poor and the working class.”
“We are particularly moved by the fact that we accept this overwhelming mandate from our people on an important day in our country’s history,” Zuma said.
The South African polls were endorsed as free, fair, transparent and credible by observer missions from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and the Electoral Commissions Forum of SADC (SADC ECF).
The head of the SADC Election Observer Mission (SEOM), Namibian Foreign Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said the poll was generally credible despite isolated incidences of irregularities.
She congratulated South African parties for demonstrating political tolerance and maturity ahead of, during and after the elections.
The SEOM was happy with the conduct of the IEC, which was praised for managing the elections in a transparent and professional manner.
“SEOM observed that despite some shortcomings and concerns, such as the late opening of some of the voting stations, delay of the delivery of some voting materials, and sporadic incidents of violence, such short-comings and concerns are not of such magnitude as to affect the credibility of the overall electoral process,” she said.
The 188-member SADC observer mission was launched on 21 April and deployed in all the nine provinces of South Africa.
The SEOM is expected to release a comprehensive report within 30 days of the announcement of the final results by the IEC.
The AU mission, headed by former Ghanaian president John Kufuor commended the IEC on its readiness and for being well prepared, professional and credible during the election process.
Kufour said most of the voting stations opened on time, IEC officials demonstrated “remarkable knowledge” of the voting procedure and political party agents were involved in key decisions.
