South Africa's IEC Announces Results Of The General Elections 2024
Updated: Jun 3
Africa | South Africa June 2, 2024
South Africa's Indpendent Electoral Commission (IEC) in the evening of June 2, 2024, announced the official results of the country's General Elections 2024 that were held on May 29, 2024. According to the announced results, no political party managed to win a National Assembly majority alias parliamentary majority in the general elections. For allocation of National Assembly seats to various political parties and independent candidates, only votes from national and regional ballots apply.
More specifically, the announcement confirmed that the incumbent African National Congress (ANC) remains the largest political party in the country with 40.23% of the vote, while its traditional main rival Democratic Alliance (DA) maintains its position as the main opposition and second largest party with 21.74% of the vote. A new political party called uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and founded by ex-President Jacob Zuma made an impressive debut at the ballot place, by taking home 14.15% of the vote, and becoming the third largest party. The fourth largest party becomes the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) with 9.52% of the vote.
Translating received votes into seats in the country's 400-seat National Assembly under South Africa's proportional representation electoral system, the four top political parties have attained the following number of seats, according to the IEC announcement.
ANC 159 seats
DA 87 seats
MK 58 seats
EFF 39 seats
ANC has accepted the results of the elections, saying, among others, that they reflect the will of the people.
From the election results, ANC has therefore lost its parliamentary majority for the first time, having dominated the National Assembly with outright majority since the abolition of apartheid and introduction of democratic multi-racial elections in South Africa in 1994. That means that as the largest political party ANC now has to share power through entering into a coalition with some opposition parties, if it is to elect the next president and form a new government. The formation of such a coalition may not be an easy task for ANC, given ideological diversity of political parties in South Africa.
The historic poor performance by ANC at the ballot place in 2024, is said to be an outcome of response by the electorate to some crucial social and economic problems confronting South Africa right now, that are inherent in poor governance during the the party's 30-year reign. The problems include rampant corruption within the public sector, high crime rate, non-inclusiveness, high unemployment especially among the youth, inadequate affordable housing especially in urban areas, perpetual power cuts, and even water shortage, among others.
Whether a new ANC coalition government will be able to effect necessary social and economic change in South Africa through adequately adressing and resolving the problems facing the country is likely to depend on the opposition parties that will be in the coalition.
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