ANC Battered At S.Africa Local Elections

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published August 05, 2016 | 03:12 PM

JOHANNESBURG,(APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th Augst,2016) - The African National Congress (ANC) reeled from bruising local election results Friday as South African voters drift away from the celebrated party that led the anti-apartheid struggle. With about 90 percent of the nationwide vote counted, the ANC was ahead overall but recorded its worst electoral performance since white-minority rule fell 22 years ago. The party once led by Nelson Mandela was on 54 percent -- sharply down from 62 percent in the last municipal elections in 2011. On Friday morning, it conceded defeat to the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party in Port Elizabeth, an industrial city that was a key battleground of Wednesday's election.

The two parties were in a close fight for Pretoria, the capital, and Johannesburg, the country's economic centre, with the ANC set to lose its outright majorities in both cities. "We know it's a tight race but I can assure you that we will emerge victorious in Tshwane (Pretoria), we will emerge victorious in Johannesburg," Jackson Mthembu, ANC chief whip in parliament, told reporters, striking an upbeat tone.