Pretoria
The African National Congress won South Africa’s general election last week with an overwhelming 70 percent of the vote, increasing its dominance in parliament for the third straight vote. Since parliament elects the president, the landslide guarantees President Thabo Mbeki a second five-year term. During the campaign, opposition parties argued that single-party dominance was bad for democracy, but voters evidently did not agree. The nearest challenger, the white-led Democratic Alliance, got just 13 percent, while the National Party, which ruled the country during the apartheid era, tallied less than 2 percent.
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