The first time Mpho Moroka voted, in 2008, she backed the African National Congress (ANC). Almost two decades on, the unemployed 38-year-old from Soweto, Gauteng province has switched sides to the rival Democratic Alliance (DA) ahead of local elections.
“I’m from the township. I saw the poverty, I saw the struggles and I saw that there is no change,” she told Reuters at a DA campaign rally. “So I said no more ANC.”
Moroka’s shift reflects a broader fragmentation of SA’s electorate that has made outright majorities increasingly difficult to secure.
Polls suggest the historically dominant ANC will remain the biggest single party overall, but suffer a haemorrhaging of support in the November 4 votes.
In the absence of clear victories, the party and its rivals will have to sit down to the fraught task of negotiating coalitions to govern SA’s major municipalities.
Their challenge, to get over their differences and form administrations stable enough to improve services, rebuild infrastructure and attract investment.
Louw Nel, senior political aAnalyst at Oxford Economics Africa, said polling suggested support for the ANC could fall to as low as 31% to 34%, around half the more than 60% it secured in the 2011 local elections.
But the DA, the second-biggest party, was not capturing all of its deserters, Nel told Reuters.
—Reuters–
