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South Africans remain poor and unemployment is high

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South Africa has the biggest economy

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The construction industry, on the other hand, benefited from a huge program of government investment ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

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Poverty widespread, high crime rateassociated with high unemployment. Economy moved into recession in May 2009

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The African National Congress stormed to a fourth successive landslide victory in election results announced today, but stopped short of maintaining its coveted two-thirds majority in the South African parliament.

Spokeswoman Jessie Duarte said the ANC's final score of 65.9% - its lowest since 1994 - represented an "emphatic mandate" for party leader Jacob Zuma ahead of his inauguration as president on 9 May. The main opposition hailed a victory for democracy as the ruling party lost its parliamentary power to change the constitution unchallenged.

Final results were released by the Independent Electoral Commission in Pretoria at the end of a process delayed by the fact that the 17 million South Africans who voted on Wednesday - a 77% turnout - could cast their ballots in any polling station in the country.

The ANC's loss of its two-thirds majority was a triumph for the Congress of the People (Cope), created only four months ago. The black-based Cope, whose supporters are close to Zuma's arch-rival, the former president Thabo Mbeki, scored only 7.42% in the national poll, but the party's presence on the ballot paper achieved its aim of undermining the dominance of the ANC among black voters.

The biggest setback for the ANC was the loss of the Western Cape, where it won only 31.6%, against 46% in 2004, marking the first time the ruling party has been ousted from provincial government at the polls. The Democratic Alliance (DA) won an absolute majority in the Western Cape with 51.3% of the vote, nearly double what it scored in 2004.

Fighting her way through 300 well-wishers after flying back from the counting centre in Pretoria, the Cape Town mayor and DA leader, Helen Zille, claimed to be at the vanguard of multi-partyism in South Africa.

"The Western Cape is leading South Africa towards democracy,'' she told the Observer. "The voters here have shown the nation that democracy is not just about the right for everybody to vote, but about the regular change of government through the ballot box."

Zille, who will become premier of the Western Cape province, said the first victory for the opposition would be to block Amendment 17. The constitutional change, which limits local authorities' revenue-raising powers, was put before cabinet shortly before the election.

The DA, which won 16.6% of the vote nationally, also hopes for support from other opposition parties to prevent the ANC from managing the judiciary to its advantage. The party claims the national prosecutor bowed to ANC pressure when it withdrew a corruption case against Zuma three weeks ago.

On the arrivals forecourt at the airport, Zille's car was blocked by the dancing crowd. Tourists with trolleys seemed confused by the sea of blue T-shirts in this country everyone thinks is ruled by the ANC.

The Western Cape, the country's richest province, has always been different because of its racial make-up: 4.2 million people here are classed as "coloured" - a painful mixed-race label that goes back generations - against about 1.2 million black and 1 million white.

But Zille, a 58-year-old former anti-apartheid activist, claims the DA's breakthrough is much more than a demographic assertion. "The DA is the most non-racial party in South Africa," she insisted, "and the magnificent thing is that the voters of the Western Cape have led the way in the crusade against identity politics."

Zille, a former journalist who had to leave the profession in 1977 after co-authoring a scoop that exposed the apartheid regime's role in the death of struggle hero Steve Biko, is the biggest thorn in the ANC leadership's side.

She is not humble and yesterday claimed a Barack Obama-like victory in her crusade against identity politics, an apartheid invention that lives on through the ANC's incessant references to race. She told the Observer: "In the DA, we have crossed all the racial boundaries and done, in 15 years, what it took the United States 221 years to do."

While she accepts she will never be president of the country because she is white, she has credentials that humble those of many black ANC supporters. In the 1980s she was a leader of the Black Sash women's resistance movement. She entered mainstream politics in the 1990s when her party was called the Democratic party and polled 5% in the province. As provincial education minister, she gained the nickname "Godzille" (coming to a school near you) for her dawn blitzes on schools with high teacher absenteeism.

Her mantra since becoming mayor of Cape Town in 2006 has been to show up the "failed state" created by the ANC, whose centralised approach she believes stunts service delivery. Reformed municipal policing and efforts to combat drug crime appear to be among her achievements. But gangs still rule the Cape Flats and the burden of poverty is still so huge in the city that it is impossible to say the DA does a better job than the ANC.

Nevertheless, that is what Zille plans to do. She told the crowd that as provincial premier she would "try to govern as well as I can to show that life is better for everybody under the DA".

The crowd did not need convincing. Their banners said "Wake up SA and support Helen" and "Service delivery happens in the Cape". Their song elevated her even further: "Dit is Zille wat die wind laat waai" (It's Zille who makes the wind blow).
Topics

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ANC wins again in South Africa, but new party weakens its control

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The African National Congress stormed to a fourth successive landslide victory in election results announced today, but stopped short of maintaining its coveted two-thirds majority in the South African parliament. Spokeswoman Jessie Duarte said the ANC's final score of 65.9% - its lowest since 1994 - represented an "emphatic mandate" for party leader Jacob Zuma ahead of his inauguration as president on 9 May.

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Jacob Zuma

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BRAZIL, RUSSIA, INDIA, CHINA, SOUTH AFRICA

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Facts, Popular
Africa is second largest and second most populous continent in the world with a total population of 1.111 billion.

African languages belong to one of the four language families: Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo and Khoisan. Around 2,000 languages are spoken in Africa. Nigeria alone has 250 languages, one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world. The people of this large continent also use a wide variety of sign languages.

Here are the top 10 most spoken languages in Africa.

Zulu (IsiZulu) is used in the Eastern part of South Africa. Its tongue clicks are unique. The language is written with Latin characters. It is used widely in the South African media. According to Ethnologue, Zulu is the second most spoken Bantu language after Shona.

Amharic is the second most spoken Semitic language (after Arabic) in the world. It is the official working language of Ethiopia. Outside Ethiopia, Amharic is the language of around 2.7 million emigrants. More than 18.7 million people speak Amharic in Africa.

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Top 10 Most Spoken Languages in Africa 2016

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Facts, Popular Africa is second largest and second most populous continent in the world with a total population of 1.111 billion. African languages belong to one of the four language families: Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo and Khoisan. Around 2,000 languages are spoken in Africa.

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1994 in South Africa saw the transition from South Africa's National Party government, who had been the ruling party in South Africa since 1948

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South Africa has the second-highest number of HIV/Aids patients in the world