Local elections usher in two-party system

With the vast majority of local election votes counted by Thursday, the ruling African National congress(ANC) had 59 percent of the popular vote and the newly-formed Democratic Alliance(DA) increased its support with 23 percent, agencies reported. The results prompted analysts to declare that post-apartheid South Africa - dominated so far by the ANC - was on the road to becoming a two-party state for the first time. Later returns from rural areas were expected to increase the ANC’s share of the vote, but DA leader Tony Leon calculated that his party would win 24 percent of the vote countrywide once all votes were in.

The ANC officially won control of three new metropolitan councils in Gauteng Province that include the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria and the Eastern Cape province’s Nelson Mandela metropole that includes the city of Port Elizabeth. But after a closely fought campaign in Cape Town, the DA triumphed with 53 percent of the support and the ANC 38 percent. National turnout stood at 48 percent of registered voters.

But the emergence of a two-party system simply serves to underline the old divisions in South Africa, analysts said. “What is worrying is that people have voted along class and race lines,” said Richard Calland of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA). “Middle class whites have voted for the DA and blacks have voted for the ANC. Lower class people also voted in fewer numbers than wealthy white voters.”