JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—There it was on South African TV screens on the morning of Thursday Nov. 4, a day that could yet signify a pivot—for better or worse—on the tumultuous axis of one of the world’s youngest, but troubled, democracies. As results from local government elections held on Monday rolled in, the shock began sinking in that the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA)—a multiracial party often branded “racist” and “in bed with white capitalists” by the ruling African National Congress (ANC)—had garnered the most votes in the city that bears the name of the ANC’s iconic former leader.
The ANC’s loss in Nelson Mandela Bay was a narrow one (by less than 1 percent). But for many analysts it represents a seismic shift in South Africa’s political landscape, and a stark symbol of the chasm that now exists between Africa’s oldest liberation movement turned political party, and the people it claims to represent in this nation of 60-million people.
