This week’s local elections have strengthened South Africa’s democracy. Although governing party ANC is still the biggest, the oppositional DA has made significant inroads.

At a voting station in Johannesburg, black, white and coloured South Africans are queuing in the warm autumn sun. ‘I voted for the ANC,’ says the 30-year-old financial consultant Brian Simelane. ‘Since 1994 things have changed drastically in our country, although there is tons of work still to do, mainly in the rural areas. No party is perfect. But I don’t trust the opposition party DA.’

South Africans voted last Wednesday in the country’s fourth democratic local elections. While the official figures are only expected this weekend, most of the votes have already been counted. By Friday 7 o’clock in the morning, the ANC's share of the vote stood at 20.5 million (63.51 percent), with the Democratic Alliance's at 7 million (22.26 percent). In the last municipal elections in 2006, the ANC walked away with 64.8 percent of the vote and the DA with 16. After Wednesday's elections, the DA will hold on to Cape Town, while the ANC will control Johannesburg.

Corrupt
South Africans have become less and less happy with the ANC. While the majority of the people still live in poverty, the ANC officials are seen as squanderers driving luxury cars, living in mansions and eating sushi. Many local politicians are corrupt and, according to South Africans, just want to fill their own pockets. And although the elections figures show the ANC still won the majority of the votes, they are losing ground to the DA.

The opposition party strengthened its base in all big cities, which will be a worry for the ANC. In Johannesburg the DA secured 35 percent of the votes and 90 seats. The party is also hanging on to Midvaal, south of Johannesburg, the only municipality in Gauteng province led by the DA where the ANC did massive campaigning to win votes back. That they failed shows that this part of the country is happy with how the DA is running their area.

Black vote
The DA was hoping to cash in on the voters’ criticism of the ANC and persuade the majority of the poor black voters to vote for them. That particular group is traditionally not DA-minded. This wasn’t an easy task, since the DA is traditionally seen as a white liberal party catering for the middle and higher classes. Although there is more analysis needed to see which areas voted for the DA, the higher numbers in for example Johannesburg, a city that is mainly black, is an indication the DA might have succeeded in that strategy.

Another interesting development is that there are only two parties left that seem to matter in the country. Although 112 parties were competing in these elections, it is clear that the next ballot will mainly be a race between the ANC and DA, since the small parties have been swept from the table. Analysts are happy with the results. South Africa has a multiparty system, but with the ANC being so strong it is more like a one-man show. On a local level, this situation is now slowly changing towards a two-party system.

Mandela
There was some speculation the past days as to which party former ANC-president Nelson Mandela would have voted for. The smaller party COPE twittered that he had abandoned the ANC to vote for them. Mandela’s daughter Zenani Dlamini dismissed speculations that her father had voted for any party other than the ANC. “It was clear all along where his historical allegiance lay,” she said.

The next national elections will be in 2014. President Jacob Zuma needs to step up his game if he wants to be elected as the party leader again and become the next president of the country. Luckily for him, on a national level Zuma’s approval rate is still fairly high and people who vote for the opposition in the municipal elections still might give the ANC a chance. In the meantime all the DA can do is prove that they govern their areas better than the ANC does his, in an attempt to slowly win more voters over to their side.