South Africa's ruling ANC will win an outright majority in 2024 elections and not need to govern in a coalition, President Cyril Ramaphosa has said, 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 on Saturday 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.
Launch campaign
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.
'Different country'
During the last campaign in 2019, the ANC prioritised economic and social transformation, the fight against corruption, crime, and the progress made since apartheid.
"We have a vastly different country," he said, but added that "the shadow of apartheid has continued to cast a shadow on everything we have sought to do".
Under apartheid, 36 percent of South Africans had access to electricity and now this figure was close to 93 percent, he said.
"It is a great achievement but there it still a lot to do," he said.
Ramaphosa acknowledged many voters are "bitterly critical of (the) ANC".
"Renewal is not a one day event," he said.
