JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — South African police arrested 59 people and the army was called in overnight to quell post-election protests in a Johannesburg slum, the police and news media said Saturday, as the government clamped down on disorder after the victory of the African National Congress at the polls.
The police used rubber bullets and stun grenades on Friday to disperse protesters in the impoverished black township of Alexandra who had burned tires and barricaded roads, a police spokesman, Brig. Neville Malila, said. Alexandra was “calm this morning,” he said, adding that security forces remained in the area.
The South African Press Association reported earlier that the army had been called in overnight to restore calm, quoting the premier of Gauteng Province, Nomvula Mokonyane.
Although the ruling African National Congress remains popular with South Africa’s black majority after it dismantled the apartheid system in 1994, there is rising discontent among the millions stuck in grinding poverty and without access to running water or electricity.
The A.N.C. won the election with 62.16 percent of the votes, according to a provisional tally.
After the vote, as many as 400 people gathered on Friday outside a court in Alexandra to demand the release of other protesters arrested a day earlier, Brigadier Malila said.
At least 39 people were arrested Thursday after an electoral commission office was burned in Alexandra. Both groups of those detained are due to appear in court on Monday.
By calling in the army, the African National Congress government is taking a harder tack against public unrest than it has in the recent past.
When violent labor unrest swept through the country’s platinum belt in 2012, the government put the army on standby, but did not dispatch it.
Burdened with sluggish economic growth and damaging strikes in his first term, South Africa’s scandal-plagued president, Jacob Zuma, is at pains to soothe investor concerns about Africa’s most sophisticated economy, and push through pro-business reforms.
Over the past year he has devoted less and less time to the wishes of unions, whose long walkouts have hurt confidence in the economy.
Mr. Zuma hinted last week that the African National Congress needed to take a more pro-business stance, accusing the main union for platinum workers of irresponsibility for dragging out a four-month wage strike. A www.nytimes.com extract.
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