Now for the hard part

摘要

Most parties would delight in a sixth successive election victory. But South Africans' endorsement of the African National Congress (ANC) on May 8th was tepid (see Middle East & Africa section). The ANC's share of the vote was 57.5%, the first time in a national ballot that it has fallen below 60%. More important, over half of South African adults could not be bothered to go to the polls. Twenty-five years after the jubilant vote that ended apartheid, South Africans are disillusioned. They are not quite ready to abandon the main party of the liberation struggle, but they wish it was better at running the country.