Cape Town, South Africa – Anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela voted in South Africa’s third multiracial local elections Wednesday, declaring he would even rise from his grave to exercise his hard-won franchise.
But many others stayed home – unhappy that Mandela’s African National Congress has been slow to deliver services and stamp out corruption, but unwilling to vote against the party that ended white racist rule.
Voting proceeded smoothly at the country’s 19,000 polling stations, except for a few isolated incidents, according to the Independent Electoral Commission and police.
President Thabo Mbeki was first to vote in the capital, Pretoria, and urged the nation’s 21 million registered voters to cast their ballots “because we need a very strong and legitimate local government.”
In the last municipal elections, in 2000, the ANC won 59 percent of the vote, the main opposition Democratic Alliance got 22 percent and the rest was split among smaller parties. At national elections in 2004, the ANC swept to an overwhelming 70 percent majority.
