South Africa will go to the polls on May 29, 2024, to choose a parliament that will in turn pick a president.
The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, announced this on Tuesday, February 20, 2024.
“I call on all South Africans to exercise their democratic right to vote and for those who will be campaigning to do so peacefully, within the full observance of the law,” Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement.
The statement noted that this year’s general elections will coincide with South Africa’s 30th anniversary of “freedom” and “democracy.”
This year’s vote may prove historic, with opinion polls showing Ramaphosa’s ANC party on less than 50 percent for the first time in South Africa’s three decades of democracy.
During the 2019 elections, the Democratic Alliance received just over 20% of the national vote to remain the second-biggest party in the country after the ANC. The party is now exploring the possibility of forming a governing coalition with several other opposition parties in order to remove the ANC from power if they together win more than 50% of the national vote.
“By bringing an end to opposition infighting and consolidating like-minded parties into a cohesive bloc, this formation offers voters the best prospect for political change since 1994,” Steenhuisen told party loyalists Saturday.
Under South Africa’s system of government, lawmakers elect the president, so a party or coalition with a majority in parliament controls both the executive and legislative branches. If the ANC’s support falls below 50% at the polls, the party would have to make deals with smaller parties to secure Ramaphosa’s reelection.