South Africa's ANC Suffers Worst Losses Since Apartheid's End

South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress, suffered its worst electoral setbacks since the end of apartheid, losing political control of two strongholds in the capital city of Pretoria and the Eastern Cape region near Port Elizabeth to the political party most associated with the white-minority settler government, and maintaining control of Johannesburg by the slimmest of margins.

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With the final ballots counted Sunday, the Democratic Alliance added the municipality of Tshwane – which includes Pretoria – to its electoral haul, outpolling the ANC by two percentage points, 43 percent to 41 percent. The party had already won the province of Nelson Mandela Bay, which includes Port Elizabeth, and maintained its grip on Cape Town. Additionally, the DA only narrowly missed an opportunity to oust the ANC for control of Johannesburg, which includes the storied all-black township of Soweto, winning 38 percent of the vote to the ANC´s 45 percent.

Overall, the ANC won 54 percent of the vote, while the DA won 27 percent and the radical Economic Freedom Fighters party, contesting local elections for the first time, won 8 percent of the vote. Stil, the results represent the ANC's worst performance at the polls since voters of all races went to the polls 22 years ago to repeal apartheid and elect Nelson Mandela as the country's first democratically elected president.

The DA's strong showing is also significant in that it illustrates just how far the South African electorate is willing to go to undo the ANC's neoliberal reforms, which has not addressed a decline in living standards for the country's impoverished black majority, while earning a growing reputation for corruption. The DA was founded by some of the more liberal figures in the now defunct National Party, which created apartheid in 1948. Last year, the party elected its first black leader, 36-year old Mmusi Maimane.

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"It signals to everyone that the tide in our country is turning," Maimane told reporters on Saturday.Since the end of apartheid, the ANC had enjoyed an electoral grip on these areas.

The ANC will now have to form a coalition government with the DA in provinces that it won overwhelmingly in past elections, sometimes with margins approaching 75 percent. And it will likely embolden party rivals to challenge embattled President Jacob Zuma ahead of the 2019 elections.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said the party would do some soul searching, acknowledging that some critics had called the ANC "arrogant, self-centered, self-serving," but saying those descriptions were unfair.

"We are going to do an introspective look at ourselves... we are a party that is not going away," he said.