South Africa's election could bring the biggest political shift since it became a democracy in 1994

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africans will vote Wednesday to decide whether their country will take its most significant political step since the moment 30 years ago when it brought down apartheid and achieved democracy.

This national election will not be as momentous as the one South Africa held in 1994 — few have been. Then, Nelson Mandela led the African National Congress party to victory as Black South Africans who were the majority were allowed to vote for the first time. It officially ended a half-century of racial segregation under apartheid — a violently enforced system that attracted the world's outrage — and hundreds of years of white minority rule.

But while the ANC still governs in 2024, it is amid rising discontent caused largely by high levels of unemployment and poverty. That could result in a majority of South Africans choosing another party this week over the one that led them to freedom.

“Thirty years of South African democracy does not mean we should endure an eternity under the ANC,” John Steenhuisen, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance party, said in the run-up to the election.