ANC walks political tightrope over coal plant shutdowns

In a ward where South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) won handily in local elections three years ago, party campaign worker Poppy Vilakazi has been getting a decidedly frosty reception lately. “Mostly they are angry,” she told Reuters, speaking in Komati, a village in the shadow of a shuttered power plant in Mpumalanga province, an ANC stronghold in the country’s coal belt.