South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has suffered its worst electoral setback since apartheid ended in 1994.

With 94 per cent of the votes counted after Wednesday’s municipal elections, the party has lost the key battleground of Nelson Mandela Bay to the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA).

The two parties are in a close fight for Johannesburg and Pretoria but the ANC is still in the lead nationally, with 54 per cent of the vote.

The ANC has won more than 60 per cent of the vote at every election since the end of apartheid more than two decades ago.

Unemployment and corruption scandals surrounding President Jacob Zuma have tarnished the ANC’s image.

Named after ANC liberation hero and South Africa’s first democratically elected president, the loss of Nelson Mandela Bay is a big blow to the party.

Many of the leaders of the struggle against apartheid come from the area.

The DA, which took 46.5 per cent compared to the ANC’s 41 per cent says it is in talks with other parties to form a coalition in the municipality on South Africa’s southern coast.

“If you ask people in Nelson Mandela Bay what they voted for they said, ‘We voted for change,'” DA leader Mmusi Maimane said.

“I think that to me says that our message got through – it says our people heard us and South Africans still believe in a dream of a non-racial South Africa, South Africans still want our country to prosper.”

Media reports indicate it looks like no party will win an outright majority in the economic hubs of Johannesburg or Tshwane, and coalition negotiations are already underway.

The municipal election result is probably the biggest wake-up call the governing ANC has received since it ushered in democracy in South Africa in 1994.

Clearly, the ANC still commands huge support across the country but that support is waning. It can no longer take it for granted that the black majority will blindly follow it.

The best example is in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, won by the DA, which has a rich history of anti-apartheid struggle. Its new DA mayor is Athol Trollip, who is white.

Twenty-two years after the end of apartheid, black people are now voting on issues and not on race and Mr Trollip, who speaks fluent Xhosa, would not be where he is if the vast majority of black people had not voted for him.

By Friday mid-morning, the ANC had 54 per cent, followed by 26 per cent for the DA and 8 per cent for the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

The local elections are being seen as an indication of the mid-term popularity of President Zuma.

Correspondents say a poor ANC performance could embolden Mr Zuma’s rivals within the party to challenge him.

The next general elections are due in 2019 but Mr Zuma cannot stand for a third term as president.

South Africa’s economy has also been one of the main issues for voters, with growth expected to be zero this year, and unemployment standing at 27 per cent.

Protests demanding better housing and amenities have sprung up across South Africa.

Mr Zuma has also had to weather a corruption scandal, after being ordered to repay taxpayers’ money spent on his private home.

Security was tight for the elections and the electoral commission said voting had passed off smoothly.

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South Sudan’s information minister Michael Makuei has said that the government will hold troops accused of crimes accountable.

‘The government has already given orders to the army and regular forces that whoever is implicated for any offence is arrested,” he said, adding that “there are over 200 soldiers who are under arrest and are being investigated’ he said.

Mr Makuei however, also blamed the opposition rebel group SPLM-IO and the UN peacekeeping force – UNMISS , saying they were ‘most likely responsible for the violent attacks against civilians’. He also lashed out at the world body, saying it was sending out ‘misleading’ information about the rights situation in the troubled country.

Mr Makuei’s remarks come in the wake of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, accusing the South Sudanese government troops and the rebels of carrying out ethnically targeted atrocities, including extrajudicial executions and rapes, during renewed fighting over the last month.

According to Al Hussein, preliminary findings showed that the majority of crimes were carried out by troops loyal to President Salva Kiir, who is from the Dinka ethnic group, against people of Nuer origin.

Of 217 cases of sexual violence in the capital, Juba, recorded by the UN between July 8 and 25, ‘those most affected were displaced Nuer women and girls and those responsible seem to have been mostly SPLA’, Zeid said.

On July 11, SPLA soldiers went house-to-house, taking away and shooting eight Nuer civilians, the UN said, adding that they had also killed a Nuer journalist.

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), the main armed opposition group, has also been blamed for atrocities, but to a lesser extent.

Almost 300 people, including at least 73 civilians, were killed in the recent fighting.

Tens of thousands of South Sudanese civilians were forced to flee the country, mainly into neighbouring Uganda, with more than 1.6 million people being internally displaced.

Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the number of civilians killed may be a bit higher than 73 and described the sexual violence as ‘horrendous’.The epidemic of sexual violence that has plagued three years of on-off fighting in South Sudan also had an ethnic dimension when soldiers carried out rapes in and outside Juba.

Colville also called on the government to take action and charge the troops accused of rape and murder, which he said is “something that never happens in South Sudan”.

Meanwhile, the 13,500-strong UNMISS force in the country has faced criticism for failing to stem the latest violence or fully protect civilians during the fighting.

The force command is investigating allegations that peacekeepers at a base in Juba stood by and did nothing as a woman screamed for help during an assault by two soldiers near the gate of their base.

The UN commissioner addressed this, urging “strong action in those instances where UN military personnel defaulted over their duty to protect civilians”.

Although the government has established a court aimed at trying SPLA soldiers who commit right abuses, ‘the violations continue unabated’, Zeid said, along with the forcible recruitment of boys and men.

The country is also struggling to cope with a growing humanitarian crisis as UN camps become overwhelmed with displaced and malnourished people.

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