The focus for South Africa’s national election next week is on the fate of the African National Congress party and whether it is going to lose its parliamentary majority for the first time. Several polls put the ANC’s support below 50%, raising the prospect that it might not be the majority party for the first time since winning control of the government when Nelson Mandela led it to victory in the first all-race elections that ended white minority rule in 1994. But the ANC is still widely expected to be the biggest party. No clear majority would bring an unprecedented political change and complicate how the president is elected and how the government works in Africa’s most advanced economy.
