Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika

This has to be my favorite national anthem (this version with Miriam Makeba). In fact I once tried to turn it into a title for this blog, but it proved far too lengthy/difficult to remember how to spell...

Anyway, back on the subject of elections, South Africa is next week (April 22) holding its national elections, with the African National Congress (ANC) set to win by a landslide (again) and Jacob Zuma to be elected the country's next president.

But politics in South Africa is not what it was in the 1990s after the fall of apartheid, especially with the dawning of the ANC breakaway party, Congress of the People (COPE -- quite a fitting acronym...), founded by disgruntled former ANC members following the ousting of former president Thabo Mbeki.

"The ANC is poised to win a convincing majority in national polls on Wednesday on the back of an effective electoral machinery and a resurgence in the populous province of KwaZulu-Natal. But beneath the headline figures, which will likely see the party coming close to the critical two-thirds majority it so urgently wants, there are signs of an important change in the political landscape. The ANC’s victory portends an arguably more significant realignment: a shift in the political landscape which could see the Democratic Alliance and Cope work closely together and so begin the work of crafting a governing alternative for future elections."

Says the Mail & Guardian, discussing what the ANC victory means. The Economist also has quite a comprehensive piece on the subject, and you can catch all the latest on AllAfrica...