JOHANNESBURG: South Africa will go to the polls on May 29 to choose a parliament, which will in turn pick a president, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced Tuesday.

The vote may prove historic, with opinion polls showing Ramaphosa’s ANC party on less than 50 percent in nationwide elections for the first time in South Africa’s three decades of democracy. If the African National Congress (ANC), which has led South Africa since its first free elections in 1994 after the end of apartheid rule, does not win a majority it will need coalition allies to form a government.

Complaints have been mounting about South Africa’s soaring violent crime rate, lacklustre economy, power cuts and unemployment — and Ramaphosa faces challenges from right and left.

But the ANC party remains a formidable machine, with supporters at all levels of government, and many South Africans retain proud memories of its lead role in the anti-apartheid struggle. Ramaphosa is due to launch his party’s manifesto on Saturday at a large rally at a soccer stadium in Durban in the key electoral battleground of KwaZulu-Natal.