South Africa: Early municipal results show ANC weakened
4 August 2016
Results from South Africa's fiercely contested local elections could deliver a setback to the African National Congress (ANC), with early indications showing the party that ended apartheid losing support.
With the count well under way, early results put the ANC ahead nationwide but with its lowest-ever levels of backing.
The main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) was on course to hold Cape Town and was inching ahead in the capital Pretoria and the economic hub Johannesburg as well as in the city of Port Elizabeth.
"It looks like the ANC has been reduced and humbled in many ways," Somadoda Fikeni, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera. "It looks like the verdict coming from the urban areas is negative in such that many will start blaming the leader of the party [Jacob Zuma] because he has been limping from one particular negative story to the other since December when he fired the finance minister."