Elections in South Africa

For the first time since 1994, many South Africans went into the election not as the proud Rainbow Nation that former President Nelson Mandela ushered in. Instead, many feel as though they are in a cliched movie about yet another postcolonial African state that has lost its way. Some 17 million people out of a little over 23 million registered voters cast a ballot, representing a turnout of 77 percent in the 2009 general elections.

Decisive Victory for ANC
South Africa's long-dominant African National Congress (ANC) won overwhelmingly in parliamentary elections, but did not retain the two-thirds majority it won with ease in the last elections. The victory puts party leader Jacob Zuma in line for the presidency, but without the seats in the 400-member Parliament to enact major budgetary plans or legislation unchallenged.
The ANC has lived up to expectations and carried South Africans with it to what looks like a decisive victory. It may even get two-thirds of the votes — that is more than what was expected. And yet, it was not supposed to be so easy after all.

The ANC took 65.9 percent of the nearly 18 million votes cast on April 22, 2009. A split in the ANC and questions about Zuma's fitness to govern after sex and corruption scandals were the main contributing factors. But the ANC was allotted 264 seats, three short of the two-thirds, based on the vote count. The main Democratic Alliance got 67; the ANC breakaway party, known as COPE, got 30; and the Inkatha Freedom Party 18. Nine other parties shared the remaining seats.

Special Significance
The present South African election was special; the most important since Mandela overthrew apartheid in 1994 and ushered in more representative democracy. One reason for that was the birth of what could have been the first major black-led challenge to the ANC, and the consequent maturing of South African democracy. Secondly, the man who took over as the President long before the polls, Zuma, is an unknown executive entity despite his controversial personal and political past. That is, regardless of hopes and fears, it is not certain exactly which way he’ll take the country. Thirdly, South Africa is a beacon and yardstick for the continent.

In the past three months, the ruling ANC has finalised legislation disbanding the country’s most successful crime-fighting unit, the Scorpions. This is the same unit that investigated Zuma, president of the ANC and the man who will be installed as the country’s president, for corruption, tax evasion, fraud and racketeering.

But 15 years since the anti-apartheid revolution succeeded, the ANC is reeling under its historic burden. It is still the instinctive political home for the overwhelming majority of South Africa’s blacks. But switching to a governing role from a revolutionary one calls not just for adjustment but for the remaking of a party. So while the ANC has delivered to many of the poor, it still fails the rest. It is plagued by allegations of corruption and nepotism, so much so that Archbishop Desmond Tutu vowed not to vote ANC this time.

Challenges Ahead
How Africa’s most robust economy handles the recession, how it fights institutional and political corruption, its high crime rate and poverty, how it deals with an increasingly visible ethnic divide, will colour the decisions of other African Governments.

Zuma has said his Government will work to unite the nation. Zuma said:"Working together we will make it a government for all South Africans.

The new administration will make greater effort to eradicate poverty and build on the success of the past 15 years. The Government will improve service delivery by employing competent people in the relevant posts.