elections in south africa (cape town)

The national elections were held here in South Africa on Wednesday. South Africa's democracy is 20 years old this year, and these were the 5th elections in which every citizen had the right to vote.

It was a national holiday, and there was no school. Jim and I worked for part of the day and went out in the afternoon to try to spot a polling station. The one down the road was empty, with some bored-looking people sitting at the table - Constantia is a little more expat, a lot more white, and a little less populous than the parts of the country that get photographed for international news. So we missed out on witnessing the excitement and long queues first-hand.

Our local polling station, at a school next door to Jim's. Hard to spot, but there is a table with two people sitting at it in the center of the lawn, and no voters to be seen (assumedly they'd all come and gone already; polls opened at 7am, and this was taken at 4pm).

Take a look at live election results here: http://www.news24.com/Elections/Results#map=live

The results aren't final yet, but it is looking like the leading African National Congress has won again, and with over 60% of the vote. People were saying anything under 60% would mean relative defeat, as other parties would gain more significant power in Parliament and push the ANC toward reform.

The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has about 22% of the vote (up from 15% in the last elections). The DA's stronghold is the Western Cape, where we live, but they made significant gains in other parts of the country. They had been hoping to take Gauteng province, where Johannesburg is located (the economic center of the country).

The big news is that the "new kids on the block," the Economic Freedom Fighters, led by Julius Melema, has won around 6% of the vote and has over a million votes. This means they'll win roughly 20 seats in parliament (a big deal, as far as we can tell). The EFF has been pushing the ANC's rhetoric and legislation further to the left; Melema has called for nationalization of foreign companies without compensation. Jim wrote about this party back in the fall, as we started to notice press coverage of the group with the red berets here in the Western Cape.

Other new, seemingly promising opposition parties, including the Agang led by moderate Mamphela Ramphele, have not done nearly as well and won't get many seats in the national parliament.

We asked a few South African friends who they'd be voting for earlier this week. A fellow teacher at Jim's school was voting DA, while our friend who currently works as the security guard at the school, wasn't sure who she'd vote for: the ANC or the DA. She said, basically, "They're all crooks," and that the rest of the parties don't matter.

I spoke with a few women that I volunteer with, all white, liberal, over 40, and upper-class, about the early results on Thursday morning. They were hopeful about the gains of the Democratic Alliance, but concerned about the rise of the EFF: they noted that students seemed attracted to the party, even those at the University of Cape Town (an elite institution with relatively wealthy/middle class students), and fretted that Melema's personality and approach seemed to be to tell everyone what they wanted to hear, but he couldn't possibly accomplish what he was promising.

Overall, these elections may not bring great changes to South Africa to improve the problems of poverty and unemployment. But one of our friends said that she felt emotional as she was queuing to vote; as an American who perhaps takes our right to vote as a given, it is encouraging to see participants in a young democracy take their right to vote seriously and recognize exercising their rights as a weighty, important contribution to nation-building. One community in Gauteng, Alexandra, burned an election commission building on Wednesday in protest over an unauthorized attempted recount of votes.

Here's hoping South Africa's soon-to-be elected new leaders can stimulate economic growth, improve public services, and renew a focus on education for all South Africans.

Toasting democracy.