ANC Runaway Favorite With Voters

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa —  The ruling African National Congress has scored a resounding victory in this country’s second multiracial elections, winning almost 66% of the national vote and at least seven of the nine provincial legislatures, according to incomplete returns today.

Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, who is certain to succeed retiring President Nelson Mandela on June 16, greeted the news with reserve and excitement during a celebration at a conference center north of here.

“The people have spoken!” Mbeki said Thursday. “On behalf of the ANC, I pledge to the people of our country, our continent and the world that we will remain loyal to the directives the people have given and ensure that their will is done.”

Shortly after his remarks, Mbeki and hundreds of ANC revelers were forced outdoors because of a bomb threat. But even before the festivities abruptly ended, the president-to-be issued a stern reminder to the pumped-up crowd that having fun was not his priority as the country’s second black leader.

“We have now arrived at the moment where we go back to work,” he said in closing.

If the ANC gains 67% of the final vote, as projected by the South African Broadcasting Corp., the ruling party would have the ability to amend all but the most fundamental provisions of the constitution. The constitution was written during negotiations between the ANC and the country’s former apartheid-era rulers as part of the peaceful transition to black majority rule.

The ANC has said it has no interest in tinkering with the document, which was approved by Parliament in 1996. But in an acknowledgment of persisting fears, Mbeki pledged Thursday not to abuse his party’s mandate, which assures it an even larger parliamentary majority than it won in the country’s first democratic elections five years ago.

The ANC, which currently has 252 seats in the 400-member lower house of Parliament, will win 267 seats if it finishes with two-thirds of the vote. Its closest opponent, the mostly white Democratic Party, is projected to receive 39 seats based on returns from 85% of the voting districts.

“We are greatly humbled by the trust, confidence and love the people of our country, both black and white, have shown in and for the African National Congress,” Mbeki said in an address broadcast on national television. “We are fully conscious of the fact that the magnificent patience of our people was in part driven by their knowledge that, consistent with its traditions, the ANC would approach the exercise of power without any arrogance, with humility, with a deep sense of responsibility.”

The biggest loser in Wednesday’s contest was the New National Party, successor to the apartheid-era ruling party, which was collecting about 7% of the vote, one-third of its finish in 1994.

The poor showing virtually assures that the party of former President Frederik W. de Klerk will lose its opposition leader status to the Democratic Party. The Democrats have their roots in the struggle against apartheid, but they have expanded their 1994 electoral support fivefold on a fiercely anti-ANC platform that lured many voters from the New National Party.

The New National Party also was lagging behind the ANC in the battle for the Western Cape provincial legislature, the party’s last toehold of power. New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk hinted at a news conference that his former whites-only party was taking a thrashing for reaching out to voters of mixed race, the largest racial group in the Western Cape and the party’s new base there.

“We are obviously disappointed with the overall result,” he said. “We have paid a price for our attitude of inclusivity.”

Although the ANC’s national victory had been largely anticipated, analysts said its enormousness was due in large part to a well-oiled campaign in the run-up to Wednesday’s vote. As recently as September, an opinion survey by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa indicated that the ANC had the support of just 51% of eligible voters.

Surveys have shown that many ANC voters feel a strong allegiance to the liberation movement that brought full democracy to South Africa. Others say they support the party out of respect for Mandela, who has been the country’s most enduring symbol of the struggle against decades of white minority rule.

But Robert Mattes, an analyst with the institute, said the ANC also owes its dramatic recovery from the September ratings to an adroit campaign that included one of the oldest election tricks in the book: a last-minute push to deliver on old campaign promises.

Mattes said the ANC pressed hard over the last year to build health clinics and housing projects and complete water and utility hookups. In cases in which basic services were already in place, the party made sure voters were made aware that the ANC was responsible.

“As far as the feel-good factor goes, there are 19 measures that we look at in public opinion,” Mattes said. “In 12 of them, the government rankings are now the highest they have ever been.”

Even on the issues for which the government gets consistently bad marks from voters--crime and unemployment--Mattes said the ANC strategy of admitting its shortcomings and promising to try harder in the next five years paid off.

At polling places Wednesday, many voters agreed that the ANC had earned the right for a second term, but there was also a clear sense that this is probably the last time the party can count on sentimentality to win votes.

“Thabo Mbeki is going to have to make change to earn the respect of every African in this country,” said Gilbert Ntombela, a retired executive at Coca-Cola, who voted for the ANC in the black township of Soweto. “Otherwise, next time they will put him away.”