A bell rang on the TV, signaling a change in the results so far. From their home north of Johannesburg, the Mathivha family celebrated the latest update: with the majority of votes counted, the African National Congress won just 41%.
“Good!” Buhle Mathivha said and pointed to the TV screen.
“Good,” her husband, Khathu Mathivha, repeated.
“It will continue to decline, they are too arrogant,” Ms. Mathivha said.
The couple sat in front of a cozy fire on Friday night in South Africa, where it was approaching winter, watching news of the landmark election. For the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994, the party led by Nelson Mandela failed to win an absolute majority in a national election.
While the African National Congress, or ANC, remains the leading party in the May 29 election, the latest vote tally was widely seen as a political defeat and a rebuke from voters. like Mathivhas, who have since grown exasperated with the only party they have known. the end of apartheid. In the most recent election in 2019, the ANC took 57% of the vote. The drop to 41% in this election caused the party to lose its majority in the National Assembly, which elects the country’s president. Now it will have to work with smaller opposition parties, like those Mathivhas voted for instead of the ANC
Buhle and Khathu Mathivha broke with family convention and their own previous votes by deciding not to vote for the ANC, a party they described as “arrogant” and corrupt. Ms Mathivha, 34, and Mr Mathivha, 36, belong to the largest group of registered voters in South Africa. South Africans aged 30 to 39 make up almost a quarter of registered voters, and those slightly older, aged 40 to 49, make up more than a fifth.
Voting-age South Africans born after apartheid in 1994 have the lowest registration numbers, while those who endured the worst of apartheid are aging . Instead, a generation that experienced the euphoria and economic growth of post-apartheid South Africa, and then the depression and depression that followed, left the ANC jaded.
“They may have a plan to fight apartheid, but they don’t have a plan for the economy,” Ms. Mathivha said.
The couple lives in Gauteng province, the most populous and wealthiest region, where urban Black voters are increasingly frustrated by the ANC government’s failure to provide even the most basic services. The Mathivhas family, who work in banking and technology, live on a tree-lined street in what was once an all-white suburb of Johannesburg.
During the last election, it was Mr Mathivha’s mother, a doctor, who persuaded them to give the ANC one more try. As a black South African who grew up during the apartheid era, there were only two medical schools that Mr. Mathivha’s mother was allowed to attend. Now her son and his wife have the best choice South Africa has to offer. The couple voted ANC in 2019, but now, as Buhle and Khathu Mathivha consider their 3-year-old son’s future, they say they cannot support the ANC
Ms Mathivha’s father worked as a security guard but made sure his daughter attended a well-resourced formerly white public school in Cape Town. Mr. Mathivha’s family moved from Soweto to the wealthy north, where he attended similar schools. Nowadays, they are investing their budget to send their son to private school because they have lost faith in public schools. This will be an additional expense at a time of high inflation and rolling blackouts.
Power cuts not only make life more expensive but also more dangerous. At night, their streets are dark and deserted because the street lights have not worked for months. Their home is conveniently close to shopping malls and stores, except the commercial district has become a no-go zone because of crime. In 2020, robbers broke into Mathivhas’ house and cleaned it out. When they voted last week, public safety came first.
“Crime is a big problem for us,” Ms. Mathivha said.
They chose the Patriotic Alliance, a party founded about a decade ago by a convicted businessman who promised to be tough on crime. Gayton McKenzie, the party’s leader, has called for the death penalty to be reinstated for serious criminals.
Ms. Mathivha was also very impressed with Mr. McKenzie’s year as mayor of a rural district in South Africa’s Western Cape province. She points to his efforts to bring jobs to the town, improve infrastructure and, best of all, he doesn’t take a salary. It made an impression on Ms. Mathivha, who drove through the area as a child and remembered the extreme poverty she witnessed.
Watching this week’s election results, she was shocked that the poor province where her parents grew up, the Eastern Cape, still chose to vote for the ANC.
“I think they fear racism and racism more than they fear poverty,” she said.
In a down-ballot race, Mr. Mathivha voted for a white-led party, which is also the second-largest party, the Democratic Alliance.
“If the ANC had sorted out infrastructure, policy, education and fundamentals, I probably would have voted for them,” he said.
Despite the couple’s optimism about the outcome, they remain worried about the instability of the coalition governments. Julius Malema’s statements that his party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, would demand a role in the finance ministry as a condition for cooperation, scared them. The party has advocated nationalizing the country’s central bank.
“This is so he can control the money,” Mr. Mathivha said.
“What positive thing can come out of that?” his wife asked.
“Nothing,” her husband exclaimed.
“Thank God you came fourth,” she said of Mr. Malema’s party.
However, Mr. Malema’s party has made inroads among the black middle class in urban centers. But not as much as the new party, uMkhonto we Sizwe, or the MK party, led by former ANC president Jacob Zuma. Ms. Mathivha’s eyes widened as she saw the growth that made this the third largest party. However, like other ANC breakaway parties, she hopes the MK party will fade into oblivion.
“More than anything,” she said, “the ANC has been humbled.”
