**Title: The South African Election Poll: A Key Moment for the Country**
The election in South Africa is a crucial moment that will determine the country’s weariness with the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), in place since the end of the apartheid regime 30 years ago. President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC are struggling to retain their parliamentary majority, and several opinion polls put support for the party at less than 50% ahead of Wednesday’s election.
However, this does not mean the struggling ANC will be removed from power in Africa’s largest advanced economy. Despite a decline in his popularity, no party has emerged to replace him. Instead, South Africans unhappy with the ANC are turning to a variety of opposition parties in search of solutions.
The ANC is still likely to get the largest share of votes. But without an absolute majority, he will have to form a coalition to remain in government and maintain Ramaphosa for a second and final presidential term. For a key country on the African continent, this could bring new complications. Some recent coalitions at the local level have proven to be real failures.
While the majority of South Africans appear ready to express their discontent with the ANC in a decisive moment, a coalition government may not easily resolve the country’s major problems, which include high levels of unemployment and inequality the highest in the world.
**The Electoral Process:**
In South Africa, citizens do not vote directly for their president, but decide the composition of Parliament, called the National Assembly. They choose parties, which gain seats in Parliament based on their share of the national vote. The 400 members of the National Assembly then elect the president, which means that the majority party chooses the head of state.
The ANC has been in power since the first multiracial elections in 1994, but this time it may have to strike deals with other parties to secure the 201 votes required from lawmakers to re-elect Ramaphosa, 71, and form a government.
The main election day is Wednesday, when people will vote in all nine provinces. It will determine the composition of the national and provincial legislatures. Some who received special authorization will vote earlier on Monday and Tuesday. Results are expected in the coming days.
Nearly 28 million of the country’s 62 million people are registered to vote, in what will be only the country’s seventh fully democratic national election since the end of apartheid.
**Political Actors:**
There are more than 50 political parties registered for national elections, a record, and even more for provincial legislatures. Independent candidates will be allowed to run for the first time.
The fate of the ANC is in the headlines: Ramaphosa is the party’s leader and the face of its campaign. The main opposition is the centrist Democratic Alliance, or DA. She struck a deal with a few smaller parties in the hope that their combined vote could oust the ANC from government altogether, but that doesn’t seem likely.
The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters, or EFF, is the third largest party, led by Julius Malema, a fiery former ANC youth leader.
The DA got around 20% in the last national election and the EFF 10%, compared to the ANC’s 57.5%. None of the opposition parties appeared to increase significantly in popularity.
This is largely due to dozens of other parties, many new, garnering small shares. While 80% of South Africa’s population is black, it is a multiracial society, with many ethnicities and 12 official languages. A similarly diverse political landscape is beginning to emerge.
Among the new parties, the MK Party or uMkhonto weSizwe (meaning Spear of the Nation) has attracted the most attention because it is led by former South African President Jacob Zuma, who turned away from the ANC which he once led in a bitter fight against Ramaphosa, the man who replaced him.
Zuma has been disqualified from standing as a candidate for Parliament, but can still campaign for his party.
**The Main Issues:**
Unemployment and poverty emerge as the most pressing problems for the majority of the population. While South Africa is considered the most advanced country in Africa, its contradictions are glaring. It also has an unemployment rate of 32%, ranked as the highest in the world, and more than half of South Africans live in poverty, according to the World Bank.
This has fueled much of the discontent, as millions of the poor black majority feel the ANC has not sufficiently improved their lives three decades after apartheid, which brutally oppressed black people for the benefit of the white minority.
Other important electoral issues that appear to be driving voters away from the ANC are the high rate of violent crime, multiple government corruption scandals over the years, the failure of some basic government services and a crisis within the provider state electricity company.
The election in South Africa thus becomes a crucial moment not only for the country, but also for the political future of the African continent. The results of the ballot boxes will determine the path forward for a country marked by history and with significant contemporary challenges.