{{South Africa will go to the polls on May 7, President Jacob Zuma announced on Friday, with his African National Congress likely to easily extend its two-decade rule, despite rising discontent among its poverty-stricken grassroots supporters.}}
Zuma himself has lost popularity amid allegations of using public funds for private purposes, and the announcement of the election date came as violent demonstrations by residents in largely black townships, against poor government services, spread.
The African National Congress (ANC), which spearheaded the fight against apartheid, should retain the die-hard loyalty of an older generation whose memories of the apartheid system that discriminated against non-whites remain fresh. That should enable the ANC to win the vote with a comfortable majority, giving Zuma another five-year term in office.
But the movement which has been in power since the end of white minority rule in 1994 faces charges of largely failing to lift millions of blacks out of grinding poverty.
Underscoring the volatile atmosphere which has engulfed several townships, hundreds of youths danced and sang in Hebron, a township some 30 kilometers north of the capital Pretoria on Friday, ripping out street signs, lighting tire barricades and littering roads with boulders and rubble.
“People are never going to vote for the ANC because they are so angry,” said Jerry Tlou, 26, outside a Pakistani-owned general store in Hebron, which had just been looted by rioters.
“The ANC makes all these promises but they can’t deliver. No water, no electricity, they can’t fix the roads. I am going to vote for the DA,” Tlou, who is unemployed, said in reference to the opposition Democratic Alliance.
Unemployment in South Africa is running at around 25 percent and growth in Africa’s biggest economy has slowed sharply to about 2 percent in 2013, disrupted by the global slowdown and labor unrest that has frequently halted production in the mainstay mining and auto sectors.
reuters
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