South Africa Election: We Have Humbled ANC -Malema

By Oyewale Oyelola

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader, Julius Malema accepted 2024 South Africa Presidential election.

Malema in a statement on Saturday said he was willing to talk to his former political home (Africa National Congress) about a coalition deal.

His words: “We have achieved our mission: … to bring the ANC below 50%. We want to humble the ANC.

“We are going to negotiate with the ANC,” he said, although an ANC-EFF coalition would not be quite enough to clinch a majority without including another party, based on the latest count.”

Recall that Malema, the former ANC Youth Leader dumped the party over disagreement with them President, Jacob Zuma.

This year’s election results show EFF emerged fourth with 9.5percent of vote cast.

Reuters report that South Africans angry at joblessness, inequality and power shortages slashed support for the African National Congress (ANC) to 40% in this week’s election, ending three decades of dominance by the party that freed the country from apartheid.

The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), had 21.80% support while uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), a new party led by former President Jacob Zuma, managed to grab 14.58%. The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, got 9.5%.

A dramatically weakened mandate for the legacy party of Nelson Mandela, down from the 57.5% it garnered in the 2019 parliamentary election, means the ANC must share power with a rival in order to keep it – an unprecedented prospect.

“We can talk to everybody and anybody,” Gwede Mantashe, the ANC chair and current mines and energy minister, told reporters in comments carried by the South African Broadcasting Corporation, dodging a question about who the party was discussing a possible coalition deal with.
Counting from Wednesday’s poll was almost complete on Saturday, with results from 99.87% of polling stations giving the ANC 40.19% of votes.

The ANC had won every national election by a landslide since the historic 1994 vote that ended white minority rule, but over the last decade its support has dwindled as the economy stagnated, unemployment rose and roads and power stations crumbled.

 

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