AFP :
South Africa’s ANC surged into the lead in early official results Thursday with 55 percent of the vote in the first electoral test of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s bid to reinvigorate the ruling party.
With just over a fifth of voting districts tallied, the Election Commission put the African National Congress well ahead, with its closest rival the Democratic Alliance trailing with a distant 26 percent.
The Economic Freedom Fighters, founded six years ago by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, was sitting at eight percent
Ramaphosa, 66, took over last year after the African National Congress (ANC) forced then-president Jacob Zuma to resign after nine years dominated by corruption allegations and economic problems.
The party that wins the most seats in parliament selects the country’s president, who will be sworn in on May 25.
“The outcome of this election will be a major boost for investors… and investor confidence, it’s about confidence and about the future,” Ramaphosa said after voting on Wednesday. The ANC’s reputation was badly sullied under Zuma. “We apologise for our mistakes.”
Support for the ANC has fallen in every election since 2004 with the party taking 54 percent in 2016 municipal elections, compared with 62 percent in 2014’s national vote.
Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) were swept to power with a landslide in the country’s first multi-racial polls that marked the end of apartheid in 1994.
Most opinion surveys suggest the ANC will secure nearly 60 percent of the vote, thanks to Ramaphosa’s appeal and a fractured opposition.
Dirk Coetzee, a professor at UNISA’s political science department, said “the higher the percentage for the ANC, the more it will give him (Ramaphosa) bargaining power”.
