JOHANNESBURG: South Africa's ruling ANC will win an outright majority in 2024 elections and not need to govern in a coalition, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Saturday, despite struggling in opinion polls.
"The ANC is going to achieve an outright majority... We are confident we are going to emerge victorious," said the president of the African National Congress (ANC).
Since the end of apartheid in 1994 the ANC, which fought white-minority rule, has picked the head of state in South Africa.
Next year South Africans will elect MPs, and at the end of the vote, it is the majority party which designates the president.
Asked about the type of parties with which the ANC could ally itself to stay in power, the president smiled.
"We are not working to be in a coalition," he replied, on the eve of a meeting planned in a stadium in Soweto, an iconic township on the southern fringes of Johannesburg, to launch his campaign.
"The majority of people who have always voted for the ANC still see the ANC as the only vehicle for the transformation process in the country, to consolidate it and make it better.
"Many people don't see anyone doing better."
The ANC will be supported on the ground by the largest trade union federation in the country, the powerful Cosatu, and the Communist Party (SACP), he added.
Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa urged authorities to enforce regulations preventing city residents from unlawfully occupying apartment blocks, after scores died in a fire in a Johannesburg building that was occupied illegally.
The fire, which killed more than 70 people, has highlighted a housing crisis in a city that is one of the world's most unequal and where poverty and unemployment are widespread.
"Local government has to enforce the laws," Ramaphosa said at a governing African National Congress party event.
Ramaphosa said he has asked government ministers to look into ways of enforcing laws without violating people's rights.
The gutted building is linked to apartheid-era South Africa, as it was where Black South Africans collected their "dompas" or passbook - documents that would enable them to work in white-owned areas of the city.
Ramaphosa said he collected his passbook at the building about 50 years ago, when he worked in the city. — Agencies
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