Voting winds down in South Africa, ANC poised for win

Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 9:20 PM Posted by Beijing News


Long lines of South Africans voted Wednesday in general elections all but certain to launch the ruling ANC party's popular but controversial leader Jacob Zuma into the presidency.

Polls began closing at 9:00 pm 1900 GMT, but the electoral commission announced that voters still waiting in line would be allowed to cast their ballot.

A crushing African National Congress ANC victory is all but certain, despite corruption allegations lingering over its leader and a challenge from a splinter party set up by supporters of his rival, ex-president Thabo Mbeki.

From before dawn, queues of voters -- some carrying chairs, wrapped in blankets and with mugs of coffee -- wound around polling stations with a record 23 million South Africans registered to cast ballots.

Turnout was so heavy in some areas that the election commission reported shortages of ballot papers and overflowing boxes at the busiest polling stations.

The national icon of democracy Nelson Mandela cast his ballot in front of ululating crowds and a heavy media presence 15 years after his election as South Africa's first black president.

"The response is absolutely overwhelming all over the country," said Independent Electoral Commission chairwoman Brigalia Bam.

The first results are expected later Wednesday, with the final official tally due within one week.

The 67-year-old Zuma voted in his rural home village of Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal province to rapturous cheers.

"When I grew up, I did not know that this day would come," he said.

"This makes me feel great and it's a feeling far different from the one that we had under the apartheid government" -- which denied blacks the right to vote.

Corruption charges were dropped against the ANC leader just two weeks ago but the scandal has done little to dent the party's popularity.

"Rome was never built in a day," said supermarket worker Maggie Kotso, 47, saying the ANC state had done more in 15 years than the apartheid regime had achieved in 48 years.

"Before, we could not have stood like that in the street. The police would come and beat us. Before, there were no toilet but buckets, no road but mud," Kotso told AFP.

"Everything has not been done well so far but we still have hope and by supporting them, they will."

Despite the gains since apartheid, public frustrations are growing with 40 percent of the workforce unemployed, a staggering crime rate, and a limping health system burdened by the world's largest AIDS epidemic.

Zuma has campaigned on a pro-poor ticket with promises of improved public services, but will enter office as South Africa slides toward recession.

But for the 43 percent of South Africa's 48 million people living on less than two dollars a day, many see themselves in the rise of a self-educated former herdboy.





Edmonds

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