South Africans vote in country’s most important election since end of apartheid
- Dissatisfaction with the ruling ANC threatens to end its 30-year political dominance
- Many in the country of 62 million are fed up with high unemployment and poverty
South Africans voted Wednesday in an election seen as their country’s most important in 30 years, and one that could put their young democracy in unknown territory.
At stake is the three-decade dominance of the African National Congress party, which led South Africa out of apartheid’s brutal white minority rule in 1994.
It is now the target of a new generation of discontent in a country of 62 million people – half of whom are estimated to be living in poverty.
Africa’s most advanced economy has some of the world’s deepest socio-economic problems, including one of the worst unemployment rates at 32 per cent. Some groups say that is an undercount.
The lingering inequality, with poverty and joblessness disproportionately affecting the black majority, threatens to unseat the party that promised to end it by bringing down apartheid under the slogan of a better life for all.