The President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa has sung praises of the country’s achievements under his party’s leadership as the country celebrated 30 years of democracy since the end of apartheid.
Speaking on Saturday, the 71-year-old Ramaphosa, reminded South Africans about the first democratic election in 1994 that ended white-minority rule he said; “April 27 is the day “when we cast off our shackles. Freedom’s bells rang across our great country,”
Africa Today News, New York recalls that the first inclusive election saw the previously banned African National Congress (ANC) party win overwhelmingly and made its leader, Nelson Mandela, the country’s first Black president, four years after being released from prison.
With the ANC winning a landslide victory, a new constitution was drawn up, and it became South Africa’s highest law, guaranteeing equality for everyone, regardless of race, religion, or sexuality.
The ANC has been in government since 1994 and is still recognised for its role in freeing South Africans, but for some, it is no longer celebrated in the same way as poverty and economic inequality remain rife.
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Ramaphosa used the occasion to list improvements shepherded by the ANC, which is struggling in the polls due on May 29 and risks losing its outright parliamentary majority for the first time.
“We have pursued land reform, distributing millions of hectares of land to those who had been forcibly dispossessed,” he said.
“We have built houses, clinics, hospitals, roads and constructed bridges, dams, and many other facilities. We have brought electricity, water and sanitation to millions of South African homes.”
“The country has a 32 percent unemployment rate. The World Bank describes this society as the most unequal on earth,” Hull said.
“Corruption is rife. Infrastructure is in a dire state, and in an election due just next month, polls predict that for the first time, the ANC could fall beneath 50 percent of the vote. That, if it happens, would in itself be a pretty significant milestone in this country.”
An Ipsos poll released on Friday showed support for the governing party, which won more than 57 percent of the vote at the last national elections in 2019, has fallen to just more than 40 percent.
Were it to win less than 50 percent, the ANC would be forced to find coalition partners to remain in power.
The party’s image has been badly hurt by accusations of graft and its inability to effectively tackle poverty, crime, inequality, and unemployment, which remain staggeringly high.
The governing party is being largely blamed for the lack of progress in improving the lives of so many South Africans.