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Jacob Zuma's ANC heading for landslide in South Africa
Ed Harris24.04.09
Thousands of African National Congress supporters celebrated with Jacob Zuma in Johannesburg today as the ruling party took a commanding lead in South Africa's election.
Mr Zuma is certain to become president - all that remains unclear was the margin of victory.
Dancing and singing his trademark "Bring Me My Machine Gun" anti-apartheid anthem, Mr Zuma stressed that the ANC was "not yet celebrating victory", although with some 60 per cent of votes counted, it was cruising towards a resounding win.
"This party is an elephant. You cannot actually topple an elephant," he told a sea of cheering supporters clad in the party colours of yellow, green and black at ANC headquarters.
The ANC had 67.06 per cent of the vote, according to the latest results, hovering around the two-thirds majority that allows it to change the constitution - a scenario that has unnerved some analysts, although the party has stressed it will not abuse the right.
Zuma, a polygamist who taught himself to read, portrays himself as a champion of the poor. The ANC sees the 67-year-old as its first leader since Nelson Mandela who is able to connect with voters.
The ANC had faced a reinvigorated opposition that had hoped to at least curb its majority to below two-thirds in Wednesday's election, compared with almost 70 per cent in 2004. But the Congress of the People (Cope) party, formed by ANC dissidents with the aim of posing the first real challenge since the end of apartheid in 1994, has won a scant 7.66 per cent of votes counted.
The ANC's closest rival is the Democratic Alliance - led by Helen Zille, the 58-year-old white Mayor of Cape Town - with 15.82 per cent.
The final result is not expected before later today, but there is little doubt Mr Zuma will become president only three weeks after managing to get prosecutors to drop an eight-year-old corruption case against him.
The opposition has tried to paint the populist former anti-apartheid guerrilla, who has survived sex and graft scandals, as corrupt and anti-democratic.
The governing party has also been accused of moving too slowly over the past 15 years to improve the lives of South Africa's black majority.
But for many voters the ANC's credentials from the fight against white minority rule still outweigh its failures in tackling poverty, unemployment and an Aids epidemic.
Mr Mandela's successor as president, Thabo Mbeki, was forced to step down after almost two terms last year after he was defeated by Mr Zuma in a bitter power struggle for the ANC leadership.
Kgalema Motlanthe was appointed president of a caretaker government until Mr Zuma can take over.
Reader views (2)
Out of the frying pan into the fire. He will be no better then Mbeki.
- Roz, France
Mbeki, by the way, is related to Mugabe by marriage and has backed him to hilt to the detriment of Zimb. He also denied that AIDs existed in his country if you remember. Now because he has gotten into bed with the Chinese (more corruption), the Dalai Lama has been banned from attending the South Africa Peace Conference.
He has done nothing for SA and it's people. They went from a corrupt government to a corrupt government and their economy spiralled.
I would be very hesitant to sing the praises of that man.
- Frank, Home Counties, England.
Thambo Mbeki is one of the great unsung heros of Africa: he campaigned against apartheid and when it ended he took the reigns whilst the world feted Nelson Mandela. Though I would by no means alter the status of the Madiba, it is Thambo Mbeki who made a peaceful, bloodless transition to democracy and it was he who made South Africa the vibrant economy of happily co-existing people that it is today. Like all humans he has been fallible: too patient with Bob Mugabi, too blinkered with his budget-restrictedn spin on Aids - but Zuma is the antithesis of everything modern South Africa should aspire to.
- Roz, France
