ANC shaken by South Africa election losses
The African National Congress (ANC) yesterday vowed to learn from bruising local election results that showed South African voters drifting away from the party that led the anti-apartheid struggle.
With about 95 percent of the nationwide vote counted, the ANC was ahead overall but recorded its worst electoral performance since white-minority rule fell 22 years ago.
The party once headed by Nelson Mandela was on 54 percent -- sharply down from 62 percent in the last municipal elections in 2011.
Yesterday, it conceded defeat to the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) in Port Elizabeth, an industrial city that was a key battleground of Wednesday's election.
The two parties were in a close fight for Pretoria, the capital, and Johannesburg, the country's economic centre, with the ANC set to lose its outright majorities in both cities.
According to official results yesterday, the DA was on 25 percent with the radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on nine percent.
"We are now going to do an introspective look at ourselves," said Cyril Ramaphosa, vice president of the ANC and the country.
"(Our critics) think that we are arrogant, they think we are self-centred... I would like to dispute that and say we are a listening organisation."
Defeat in Port Elizabeth was a humiliating blow for the ANC as the municipality is officially known as "Nelson Mandela Bay" in tribute to its past as a hotbed of anti-apartheid activism.
The results were seen as a marker ahead of the next general election due in 2019. President Jacob Zuma will not stand again after serving the maximum two terms.
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