Tension, excitement and uncertainty dominated South Africa on Wednesday as millions cast their votes in an election that could end the monopoly of power of the African National Congress, the party that has ruled since the defeat of apartheid 30 years ago.

Party volunteers worked feverishly to maintain their majority. They chauffeured voters to polling stations, extolled the party’s virtues from loudspeakers on pickup trucks, and handed out bright yellow party T-shirts. Alongside these foot soldiers, senior party officials chanted as if calling them to fight.

Pollsters have widely predicted that the party will win a majority of votes, but for the first time it will receive less than 50 percent of the vote. If that happens, it will be forced to join forces with one or more other parties to form a government and stay in power.

Voters will elect a national assembly that will decide whether President Cyril Ramaphosa stays in office or is removed from office. Provincial parliamentarians will also be elected. The results are expected to be announced this weekend.

In the national elections, 51 parties competed against the African National Congress (ANC), leaving voters overwhelmed with choice – further increasing the tension for both the individual voter and the nation.

“Can you believe it? Here I am and I’m still not sure who to vote for?” said 47-year-old Kedibone Makhubedu as she stood in line outside a community center in Soweto township.

Ms Makhubedu, who works for an insurance company, said she had always voted for the ANC but was concerned about the economic situation and her 17-year-old daughter’s prospects of earning a living.

“It’s the first time I’ve really been torn,” she said.

Colorful party flags fluttered in the wind at tens of thousands of polling stations across the country. Volunteer party members belted out anti-apartheid anthems and danced the famous jig called “Toyi-Toyi.”

Opposition supporters hoped that this vote would mark a turning point for South Africa, just as it did when Nelson Mandela became president with the ANC after the first democratic elections in 1994.

“Today I feel the same excitement as in 1994,” said Beki Zulu, who voted for the first time since the first election on Wednesday. He said he was inspired this year by Jacob Zuma, the former South African president and ANC leader who now leads a new, breakaway party, uMkhonto weSizwe.

This democratic ritual took place in a country that looks very different today than it did when this ritual was first performed, but which shares many of the same fears: unemployment, housing shortages, lack of educational opportunities.

Voters left the polling stations with ink-stained thumbs demanding change – even those who had remained loyal to the ANC.

For the first time, South Africans had the opportunity to vote for independent candidates who did not stand on party lists and had to fill out three long ballot papers instead of two. The new system led to delays at many polling stations and voters waited in slow, snaking lines.

Jenneth Makhathini waited for her polling station to open in the village of Siweni in eastern KwaZulu-Natal province. She stood on a tarmac road surrounded by power lines and concrete houses – none of which existed when she first lined up to vote three decades ago. Back then, the houses were made of mud, the streets were gravel and the light came from candles.

Despite her commitment to modernisation, she was reluctant to vote for the ANC this year, disillusioned by the difficulty young people have in finding work, low wages and overburdened public hospitals.

“I do, but there is less hope now,” Ms Makhathini, a 54-year-old educationist, said of her vote for the ruling party.

But even though the party’s popularity was declining due to worsening living conditions and corruption, voters could not abandon it so easily.

In previous election cycles, South Africans said, they widely assumed the ANC would retain its absolute majority. But the party, which received nearly 58 percent of the vote in the last vote in 2019, is polling below 40 percent this year, fueling expectations that things could change in this election, voters said.

The weak poll numbers also motivated ANC officials, who focused the campaign on winning over disaffected supporters who stopped turning out to vote. Given the seemingly high turnout at many polling stations, it was unclear whether this was a good sign for the incumbent party – a sign that its supporters were turning out to vote again – or for the many challengers hoping to mobilize new voters.

A former ANC liberation fighter decided to participate in this election after last voting in 1994. However, it was not his old party.

Isaac Modise, who voted in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs, said he was supporting Zuma’s party. This was his way of motivating the ANC to improve, said 66-year-old Modise.

“We want the ANC to become a people’s organisation again,” he said.