PRETORIA: South Africa’a ruling ANC pledged to “radically” boost black economic power as counting of the final votes yesterday showed the party headed for a resounding election victory.
With fewer than two percent of voting districts still counting by midday yesterday, the ANC had garnered a thumping 62.2 percent of the popular vote, spelling a parliamentary majority big enough to hand embattled President Jacob Zuma a second five-year term.
But it would still fall short of the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution and will see its winning margin reduced for a second consecutive election, down from 66 percent at the last poll.
The main opposition party, the centrist Democratic Alliance, made gains boosted by a strong urban turnout.
Its share of the vote rose to 22.2 percent, up from 17 percent at the last election in 2009, according to the incomplete results.
Julius Malema’s populist Economic Freedom Fighters was in third place with 6.2 percent of the vote, less than a year after the party was formed. It garnered more than one million votes.
Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba said the ANC will use its fresh electoral mandate to “radically” boost black business.
“The fact of the matter is black South Africans continue to feel a sense of social injustice in terms of economic ownership patterns as well as the ownership of the land,” said the ANC number three, who is tipped to head the party one day. “We need to implement programmes that are going radically to change that.”
Gigaba admitted ANC policies that forced existing white-owned businesses take on a proportion of black shareholders had created problems.
AFP
