Millions of South Africans are voting in what is expected to be the most pivotal general election since the end of apartheid. <\/p>\n
For months, polls have shown the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party could lose its majority for the first time since Nelson Mandela led it to power in 1994. <\/p>\n
While polling can be challenging in South Africa, most analysts believe that the ANC faces its stiffest challenge yet with a population deeply frustrated by the country\u2019s direction. If support for the ANC drops below 50% for the first time, the party will be forced to enter into a coalition government. <\/p>\n
ANC leader and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called Wednesday\u2019s vote \u201cone of the most important elections in our nation\u2019s history,\u201d while addressing a crowd of thousands at <\/strong>Soweto\u2019s FNB soccer stadium on Saturday. <\/p>\n \u201cOur people will decide whether our country continues moving forward with the ANC towards a better, brighter future or backwards to a terrible past,\u201d Ramaphosa said. <\/p>\n The South African leader, who cast his ballot at a polling station in Soweto, told reporters on Wednesday that he has \u201cno doubt whatsoever\u201d that voters will again trust in the ANC. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is the day when South Africa decides, decides on the future of our country, (on) who should lead the government of South Africa, and I have no doubt whatsoever in my heart of hearts that the people will once again invest confidence in the African National Congress to continue to lead this country,\u201d Ramaphosa said. <\/p>\n South Africa is the most unequal country in the world, according to the World Bank. Citizens are also contending with the highest sustained rate of unemployment in the world, rampant corruption, feeble economic growth, crippling power cuts and rising violent crime. <\/p>\n Black South Africans, who make up 81% of the population, are at the sharp end of this dire situation. Unemployment and poverty remain concentrated in the Black majority, in large part due to the failure of public schooling, while most White South Africans have jobs and command considerably higher wages. <\/p>\n \u201cWe want to see the change,\u201d said Sydney Radebe. \u201cThis is a rich country but people don\u2019t have anything,\u201d the 66-year-old actor and filmmaker added. \u201cWe don\u2019t have land, we don\u2019t have property\u2026 you cannot own nothing and say you are \u2018free.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n Radebe was among the first early morning voters at one of the biggest polling stations in Johannesburg. On a crisp morning as the Southern Hemisphere heads into winter, the line of voters gradually began to grow inside Joubert Park. <\/p>\n Events worker Newton Ugboh, 20, was voting for the first time. \u201cI\u2019m looking for change so I came early in the morning,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Ugboh said that some of his friends didn\u2019t want to vote as \u201cthey think things aren\u2019t going to change at all,\u201d but that there are \u201cbig issues\u201d facing young people in the country. <\/p>\n The \u201cunemployment rate is crazy,\u201d he said, adding that it\u2019s a \u201cbig-time struggle to find work, most of my friends are unemployed.\u201d <\/p>\n Healthcare worker Roselyne Tswakae, 46, said she\u2019s worried about the future of South Africa\u2019s youth and also believes \u201cit\u2019s time for change.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cYoung South Africans were promised that education would be the key to success, they went to university but they are unemployed and often end up getting involved in drugs, drinking, smoking,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cWe are hoping for the light,\u201d Tswakae added. <\/p>\n Land surveyor David Ngobeni, 31, also said \u201cthere isn\u2019t much hope\u201d for young people in South Africa. He says unemployment, inflation, crime and corruption are the \u201cbig issues facing everyone right now.\u201d <\/p>\n She said the major problem the country is facing is a lack of jobs. \u201cSome of us we went to school, we graduated but we have the certificates like it\u2019s a display. It\u2019s hurting.\u201d <\/p>\n The mother-of-two added that she is educated but is currently sitting at home most of the time, and sells plastic food containers to make a living. <\/p>\n There are 52 parties on this election\u2019s national ballot, including new parties formed by previous ANC members such as former President Jacob Zuma\u2019s uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK). <\/p>\n Zuma was forced to resign as president in 2018 and served a brief stint in jail in 2021 for contempt of court. The 82-year-old was barred from running for parliament last week after the country\u2019s Constitutional Court ruled that five years must have elapsed since the completion of his sentence. However, his party will still contest the election and his face will remain on the ballot. <\/p>\n Capping off a heated few months of election campaigning, many of the largest parties held their final rallies this weekend, including the Democratic Alliance (DA),<\/strong> the official opposition party. <\/p>\n \u201cOn Wednesday, the ANC will lose the outright majority it has abused for decades to subject the people of this country to unemployment, corruption and misrule\u2026 we close the ANC chapter of our history,\u201d DA leader John Steenhuisen told supporters in the town of Benoni, east of Johannesburg. The DA has formed a coalition bloc with smaller opposition parties called the Multi-Party Charter. <\/p>\n This is the seventh general election South Africa has held since the end of white minority rule 30 years ago. A record 27.79 million people are registered to vote \u2013 the highest number to date, according to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC.) <\/p>\n The country\u2019s electoral commission (IEC) said that, by 11 a.m. in South Africa, a \u201csignificant majority\u201d of voters had already cast their ballots, as lines to vote had formed before the polls opened. <\/p>\n \u201cThis, we think, is testament to the enthusiasm of South Africans to record their political choice,\u201d the IEC\u2019s deputy CEO Masego Sheburi added during a briefing at the National Results Center. <\/p>\n Sheburi said that some voting stations opened late, but by midday \u201cgood progress\u201d was made with \u201cminimal incidences\u201d across the country. One of the issues some polling stations faced was late delivery of ballot papers, mainly in the Johannesburg area, according to the IEC. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Millions of South Africans are voting in what is expected to be the most pivotal general election since the end of apartheid. For months, polls have shown the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party could lose its majority for the first time since Nelson Mandela led it to power in 1994. While polling can be <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}