South Africa celebrates Independence Day – adressa.no

The 1994 election finally put an end to the hated apartheid regime in South Africa, which has made April 27 its official freedom day.

The African National Congress (ANC) and Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela emerged victorious from the election 30 years ago, to the immense joy of the country’s black majority.

The ANC has ruled South Africa for years, but when the country goes to the polls next month, the party’s position is under threat for the first time.

Lose support

Opinion polls indicate that the party may lose its majority in the National Assembly, and that in that case they will have to seek support from other parties in order to continue to govern.

The latest polls indicate that the party will end up with around 40 percent support. In the 2019 election, the ANC received 57 percent of the vote, and in 2004 almost 70 percent.

If the ANC does not secure over 50 per cent of the votes in the election on 29 May, they will have to invite one or more of the country’s small parties to join the government coalition.

Challengers

The center party Democratic Alliance currently has wind in its sails and receives 27 percent support in the latest poll, an improvement from 23 percent in October.

According to the polls, the extreme left-wing party Economic Freedom Fighters has around 10 percent of the voters behind it, and has lost support in the last year. The party got 17 percent in a poll in October.

The newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe party, which is named after the ANC’s former armed branch, has the support of former president Jacob Zuma and around 13 percent of the electorate.

Changes

South Africa’s current president, former trade unionist Cyril Ramaphosa, presided over Saturday’s official Independence Day celebrations at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where the country’s government is based.

– South Africa today is definitely a better place than it was 30 years ago, he said and listed some of what the ANC has accomplished during its time in power.

– We have introduced land reform and distributed millions of hectares to those who were displaced, said Ramaphosa.

– We have built houses, clinics, hospitals and roads, and we have constructed bridges, dams and much more. We have provided electricity, water and sanitation to millions of South African homes, he said.

Poverty

But even though much has changed in South Africa in the last 30 years, more than half of the inhabitants still live below the poverty line.

The official unemployment rate is 32 per cent, the highest in the world, and among young people aged 15 to 24 the unemployment rate is over 60 per cent.

Millions of black South Africans still live in run-down ghettos and informal slums on the outskirts of the big cities and have had to look far for the dream that was awakened when Mandela became the country’s first black president in 1994.

Mandela died aged 95 in 2013, and many poor South Africans believe the ANC has failed because the dream he inspired has never come true.