The African National Congress faced its toughest electoral test on Wednesday as it sought to reverse a slide in support from voters frustrated by graft and racial inequalities a generation after it won power in South Africa’s first all-race poll.
South Africa is holding parliamentary and provincial elections amid frustration with a lack of progress 25 years after Nelson Mandela’s ANC swept to power at the end of white minority rule in 1994.
Queues built up at polling stations through the morning. Some polling stations around Johannesburg opened late or did not have voting materials.
Officials have said the results could be announced on Saturday.
The national election is the first under President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced scandal-plagued Jacob Zuma as head of state in February 2018 after four years as his deputy.
Opinion polls suggest the ANC will again win a majority of the 400 seats in the National Assembly, but analysts have predicted its margin of victory will fall.
“I’m a member of the ANC but I didn’t vote for them this time,” said construction worker Thabo Makhene, 32, in the commercial hub of Johannesburg.
“They need to catch a wake-up. The way they run the state, mishandling state funds, they’ve lost their morals.”
Pete Mokokosi, a 77-year-old pensioner, said he felt South Africans needed change, a better economy, education and jobs.
“The weather changes everyday, why can’t we?” he said as he waited to vote in Soweto.
In Cape Town, Anneke du Plessis, 43, who works at a media company, said her vote was to end corruption.