South African Ruling Party Suffers Worst Results Yet in Local Elections: New at Reason

The ruling party African National Congress did not do well last week.

Marian Tupy writes:

South Africa held local elections last week. The African National Congress, which has dominated South Africa’s politics since the first all-race democratic elections in 1994, has suffered its worst result yet. While the party polled at more than 50 percent nationally, the ANC lost majority control on city councils in Pretoria, the country’s capital, Johannesburg, the country’s economic powerhouse, and Port Elizabeth. If the ANC fails to entice other parties into forming governing coalitions at the local level, control of some of South Africa’s main cities will pass to Democratic Alliance, an opposition party that has, hitherto, only controlled Cape Town. Most observers agree on the reasons for the ANC’s poor showing: incompetence and corruption

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