The 2024 edition of the , which examines the developments in South Africa up to January 2023, reflects below-50% support for the ruling party in public opinion polls. Referencing grand corruption in the state’s management of public finances and, by extension, its ability to govern effectively, the index notes growing discontent among citizens. Amid ineffective growth, and rising levels of poverty, South Africans have steadily lost faith in the once celebrated liberation movement-turned-ruling party over the past decade. The extent of its fall from grace, however, surprised most.��

The end of a triumphal era

The ANC’s final election came in at 40%, on the lower end of the 2024 BTI projections, and marked a 14-point decline from its previous margin in 2019. The official opposition, the center-right Democratic Alliance (DA), remained stagnant at 22%, while the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) saw a 1-point decline from 11% to 10%. The newly-formed Umkhonto we Sizwe Party of former President Jacob Zuma managed to 15% of the election and became the third largest party in parliament overnight. Although locating itself to the left of the ANC, the party lacks a coherent policy platform. Its campaign largely relies on the charisma of Zuma in the KwaZulu-Natal province, which contributes close to 80% of its votes.��

This result obliterated some foundational assumptions that shaped South Africa’s political landscape over the past 30 years. The ANC’s powerful rule and its ability to frame the national discourse led opposition parties and key, societal figures in business, labor and civil society, to align themselves with the party’s positions. For some, this meant developing an identity related to the party or its factions. With such influence, the ANC has increasingly blurred the lines between party and state over the past decade and a half, eventually claiming the center of South African politics. As a result, the recent election has questioned whether the center will hold without its predominant force.

Instability on the horizon

In the short term, the answer is yes. Despite damage from ANC state capture, the executive and legislative arms of the state still function, albeit far from optimally, in executing their respective mandates. As the latest BTI country report on South Africa , the rule of law, underpinned by an independent judiciary, remains supreme; the National Treasury continues to be cautious of populist pressure inside and outside of the ruling party, and an independent Reserve Bank has maintained its resolute stance in protecting the country’s currency. There is also reassurance in the ANC’s graceful acceptance of a devastating election outcome as a fair reflection of the South African people and their will. These are necessary conditions for a stable transition towards a consolidated democracy.

For the long term, a stable center is not guaranteed, requiring focus and commitment to change. Over the past decade and a half, the key metrics for the intractable, interrelated challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment have all been decreasing. Despite this, pressure and desperation from many South Americans mounted on all arms of the state for a solution. However, a majority of South Africans have recently expressed on the that the state is failing to react accordingly. In fact, close to two thirds have indicated general dissatisfaction with how the democratic system responds to their needs. A further erosion in trust towards the country’s governance can, therefore, be expected, should the state fail to halt the country’s socio-economic decline. This will have a profound impact on the country’s strategic outlook in the short to medium term.��

In light of this dilemma, a cohesive economic strategy for inclusive growth should be developed as the central effort of the new (GNU), formed in wake of the election. The idea of a GNU has been broadly welcomed as a noble response when the country remains deeply divided along racial and economic lines. However, a marriage of convenience between ten parties with diverse constituencies also poses obstacles for achieving a consensus. As such, the country’s political landscape is bound to have inevitable bouts of uncertainty and volatility in the coming months. With the 2026 local government elections looming on the horizon, parties of the GNU should take an incentive to create an enabling environment for reform.��

This turning point will depend on whether these parties are mature enough to understand the current opportunity, as their predecessors did in 1994 when the country to democratic rule. Can these parties rise above the acrimonious polarity, devoid of policy substance, that has harmed the most vulnerable for decades? Are these groups able to articulate a shared vision, providing the stability needed to set the country back on a path to prosperity? Their recent track records suggest not. However, this won’t be the first time South Africa has defied the odds.

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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In December 2007, delegates at the National Elective Conference of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) took an ill-fated gamble on the party’s future. So deep was the resentment of the technocratic impulses of its former president, Thabo Mbeki, that the world’s oldest liberation movement, once led by icons like Nelson Mandela and Joe Slovo, lost its senses and elected Jacob Zuma. A highly compromised character, Zuma stood trial on 783 corruption charges at that time and shortly before had been acquitted on rape charges, after admitting to having had sexual intercourse with the daughter of a close friend.

This decision, which the ANC leadership at the time hailed as a product of the organization’s “collective wisdom,” has become its collective nightmare. Once in office, Zuma proceeded to leverage the ANC’s cadre deployment policy and a powerful presidency, bequeathed by the Mbeki administration, to entrench an intricate patronage network throughout party and state, aimed at enriching his family and sustaining those dependent on his incumbency.��Zuma never managed — nor made any serious effort — to shake off the controversy that dogged him before his ascension to the country’s highest office. For most of his presidency, it was never necessary to do so. As power shifted within the party in the wake of the 2007 elective conference, so it did within the state, where Zuma allies took up key positions within the prosecuting authorities and intelligence agencies.

While several of his patronage deployments have been turned down by the courts for being either under-qualified or unsuitable for their respective positions, many other weak appointees made their way into the governance system, resulting in the erosion of good governance practices in key departments, law enforcement agencies and state-owned enterprises (SOE).

As a consequence, the pointed to growing public anger with “the proliferation of corruption and incompetence at various levels of government.” In the foundation’s most recent Transformation Index (BTI), the country’s overall score for democracy declined from 8.70 in 2006 to 7.60 in 2016. Not surprisingly, when S&P Global and Fitch, two of the three major global ratings agencies, downgraded the sovereign along with key SOEs to junk status earlier this year, both singled out policy uncertainty as the major contributing factor to their decision.

As the ANC prepares to elect Zuma’s successor in December this year — although not incorporated in the party’s constitution, the practice of a two term presidency is entrenched��— many within the party, including some of his most vocal erstwhile supporters, are counting the cost of a toxic, predatory presidency that was unleashed upon the state. Amid conditions of anemic growth and the highest unemployment levels in a decade, the consequences of his mismanagement are increasingly widening the gap between reality and the party’s slogan of a “better life for all.”

All-Time Low

Not only will the next ANC leader inherit a morally compromised and deeply-divided party — recently, up to 35 ANC members voted in favor of a parliamentary no-confidence vote against Zuma — but there is for the first time no certainty that the organization’s next chairman or chairwoman will return to the Union Buildings in Pretoria as the country’s head of the state after the 2019 general elections. In the 2016 local government elections, the party ceded control of the country’s economic hub, Johannesburg, the administrative capital, Pretoria, and Nelson Mandela Bay, the largest metropolitan area in the home province of former President Nelson Mandela. Overall, ANC support dropped to 54% from the 66% that it recorded two years earlier during the 2014 general elections.

The reasons for this decline all point in one direction. In the , only 34% of respondents indicated trust in the office of the president — the lowest ranking for any ANC leader since the country’s political transition almost a quarter of a century ago. In a more recent poll by the 24-hour news station, eNCA, in May this year, .

But also on other fronts the tide has started to turn against Zuma. In March 2016, the country’s Constitutional Court found him to be in violation of his constitutional obligations in a matter relating to the use of government funds for the upgrading of his private residence. In May the same year, the Pretoria High Court ordered the reinstatement of the 783 corruption charges that were controversially dropped by the National Prosecuting Authority shortly after he assumed office. Just a month later, a damning report by the country’s public protector ordered a judicial inquiry into alleged improper influence by the Gupta family — three politically-connected brothers, with close ties to the president — not only in the awarding of government contracts, but even the hiring and firing of government ministers.

Importantly, it also asked pertinent questions about the extent to which Zuma may have compromised the integrity of his office through his relationship with the Gupta family, which also happened to employ his son. In 2017, the cost of his incumbency continued to exert its toll on the ANC as the systematic release of leaked email correspondence between Gupta associates gave further credence to existing allegations about their involvement in the capture of key state institutions, and more court appearances are scheduled in relation to his reinstated corruption charges.

Potential Successors

None of this bodes well for ANC attempts to revive the party’s fortunes before 2019. To do so, it will have to distance itself from Zuma and his legacy. Yet, driven by a profound fear of being prosecuted by a hostile candidate, Zuma is now in survival mode and backed by a deeply entrenched and fiercely loyal patronage network that has much to lose from his departure. The president will be pushing hard for his chosen candidate, his ex-wife and former African Union Chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to succeed him. For the same reason, his faction will also be pulling out all stops to put obstacles in the way of Dlamini-Zuma’s main contender, deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa.

For many disillusioned South Africans, who have witnessed economic decline and a drop in governance standards under the Zuma administration, the election of Dlamini-Zuma will mean only one thing — more of the same. And more of the same will mean that the party will ultimately be dragged down below the 50% threshold in two years’ time. Given Zuma’s own prediction several years ago that the ANC will rule until Jesus Christ returns, the second coming may indeed be upon us.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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