By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

South Africa's Election

Tomorrow  May 29, South Africa is scheduled to hold its most consequential election in decades. Since the end of white rule in 1994, the African National Congress—the liberation movement that toppled apartheid—has dominated South African politics, holding a majority in the parliament and the presidency. Thirty years later, the ANC is at risk of losing its parliamentary majority. In South Africa’s last general election, in 2019, the ANC won 58 percent of the parliament votes; in April, however, only 40 percent of registered voters that Ipsos polled backed the party—a dramatic decline. Other polls conducted over the past several months have shown the ANC winning the support of no more than 45 percent of voters.

If the ANC’s vote share does fall below 50 percent, as seems probable, the party will have to enter into a coalition of necessity. This will mean sacrificing key cabinet positions, some of its policy agenda, or both. Many observers suggest that such tradeoffs will inaugurate a potentially frightening shift in South Africa’s post-apartheid history. A coalition government will certainly represent a dramatic symbolic change: the epoch of ANC dominance will end, and it is unlikely that the party could regain an outright majority in the parliament. Coalition politics will also represent new political uncertainty in South Africa, as no one can predict how long any national coalition will survive.

But behind this prospect of upheaval, this election will preserve more than it overturns. The nature of coalition politics and, in particular, how that form of politics is likely to unfold in South Africa makes it unlikely that the government’s overall policy orientation will change. The ANC will remain the biggest force in South African politics, and a new government, no matter its composition, will almost surely continue the current approach to economic and foreign policy. Many who plan to vote against the ANC are not doing so to destroy the party but to jolt it out of its complacency. Such continuity will be double edged: certain institutions key to preserving South Africa’s democratic nature will remain intact, and policy will be relatively predictable, meaning the country will stand a better chance of avoiding outright state failure. But in South Africa, continuity also means the conservation of long-running problems: rampant unemployment, grinding poverty, and shocking economic inequality—all still undergirded by racial injustice.

 

Slow Burn

The ANC entered this election season weak. After taking the reins in 1994, the party promised to build a democratic, just, and prosperous society antithetical to the country’s apartheid past. But the ANC’s historical narrative, so deeply intertwined with South Africa’s liberation, has struggled to resonate with a younger electorate less enchanted by the party’s past glories than frustrated with the country’s present setbacks.

Decades of poor governance have tarnished the party’s image, along with persistent and credible allegations of corruption. The tenure of South Africa’s third ANC president, Jacob Zuma, was marred by the infamous Nkandla scandal—in which he was accused of using public funds to upgrade his private residence—and even more serious and extensive allegations. Government inquiries revealed that Zuma encouraged private firms and families to gain undue influence over government appointments and decisions.

Although corruption has been a significant issue for the ANC, it is not the party's only problem. The ANC has also failed to deliver on promises to reform the economy and bring social equity, with South Africa’s unemployment nearing 34 percent in the first quarter of 2024. Economic inequality has not budged for decades. Tragically, over half of the population still lives in poverty. The ANC has struggled to implement effective policies to address any of these problems thanks to internal factionalism, inadequate governance, and resistance from entrenched economic interests.

In South Africa’s last general election, voters backed Cyril Ramaphosa, a union organizer turned tycoon who replaced Zuma as the head of the party. In most post-apartheid elections, South Africans have longed for bold change even as they supported the ANC, and Ramaphosa succeeded in convincing voters that a “new dawn” was breaking in the country. He promised to renew the party by dealing decisively with corruption and creating millions of new jobs.

But Ramaphosa largely failed to arrest the ANC’s decline. He retained colleagues facing corruption allegations in his cabinet and lost personal credibility after it was discovered, in 2020, that $580,000 in cash had been stolen from his luxurious ranch—cash that had been hidden inside a couch. As a general rule, it is never a good thing for presidents to be found with large quantities of foreign currency stuffed in their furniture.

Ramaphosa, in truth, was always destined to falter. His promise of a new era was overshadowed by his roots in the old one. By the time he became president, Ramaphosa had been an ANC grandee for three decades and had served as Zuma’s deputy from 2012 to 2018. Rather than making bold moves on South Africa’s governance or economy, Ramaphosa focused on reuniting his fractured party. After the cash-in-the-couch scandal, Ramaphosa seemed to drift into a daze; his eyes lost their sparkle and his laugh lost its joy, and he bore all the signs of a president exposed. South Africans began to distrust that Ramaphosa could really remake the ANC—or their country.

 

Split Decision

On the ANC’s right flank, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has been campaigning on clean governance and a more market-led economy. But it cannot shake the impression that it is a party for white interests. On the ANC’s left flank, the Economic Freedom Fighters, a newer party baying for land reform and big government, has torn into the ANC’s failure to resolve racialized inequalities. But the EFF cannot shake popular misgivings about its sincerity or its capacity to translate promises into action.

The ANC knew it would face these challenges from the right and the left. In December 2023, however, the ANC’s situation worsened with the emergence of a new party, the MK, formed by Zuma himself. During Ramaphosa’s presidency, Zuma was sentenced to 12 months in prison for contempt of the country’s highest court after refusing to testify before an anticorruption commission. This development split the ANC, which for two years battled reconciling support for Zuma with adherence to the court’s order.

The new party’s name was a deliberate jab at the ANC: uMkhonto weSizwe, or MK for short, had been the name of the ANC military wing that resisted apartheid. Zuma was signaling that the “ANC of Ramaphosa” had abandoned its revolutionary mantel. MK has joined the EFF in calls for land reform, free education, and Ramaphosa’s demise. And it is now set to shave off as much as ten percent of the ANC vote—a startling number, given that the MK has only existed for six months. But that vote share reflects just how disappointed many South Africans have become with Ramaphosa’s ANC.

Fundamentally, South African voters now face a choice between an unsatisfactory status quo and an uninspiring range of alternatives. They want ethical governance and basic services, and they also want to address the legacy of racial injustice. No single party offers both at once. When the ANC loses its majority, it will therefore face a critical decision. It can either ally with the left-leaning EFF and MK, or it can align with its more conservative adversary, the DA.

 

Static Equilibrium

Each choice represents a significant symbolic shift. If it joins forces with the DA, the ANC will be embracing moderate, market-led politics; if it aligns with the EFF and the MK, it will appear to lean into radical change. Yet neither realignment is likely to trigger a real, drastic adjustment in South Africa’s domestic or foreign policy. For better and for worse, the fundamentals that define South Africa—its economic and special inequalities, its high unemployment, its constitutional framework, its judicial independence, its poor governance, and its nonaligned foreign policy—will remain intact. The immediate priority for any ruling coalition will be survival, not ambitious reform. This need to secure and maintain power among diverse political factions will inherently foster a conservative approach to governance, emphasizing cautious, incremental changes over transformative reforms.

Countries such as Italy and Germany illustrate how coalition governance often leads to stability beneath a veneer of political clamor. In Italy, the frequency of coalitional changes has left the country’s core economic and political policies intact. In Germany, coalition governments have balanced various party priorities, ensuring gradual shifts with a long-term perspective​.

There is simply no political will within the ANC to implement major changes to economic policy. So it will likely resort to making symbolic concessions to its coalition partners. Even an alliance with the EFF and the MK is unlikely to result in radical policy shifts, despite potential changes in rhetoric. Zuma governed as a centrist during his presidency, and the EFF has already started presenting its economic reforms in more moderate terms. The responsibilities of governance tend to moderate radicalism, as they did in the case of the ANC, and the same kind of moderation would likely happen to a leftist coalition. The DA would face a similar struggle to overturn longstanding ANC policies. Affirmative action is popular, and reversing it would create unnecessary conflict within a coalition government. Cutting public-sector wages would provoke a similar backlash. Coalitions can enhance accountability and tweak policies at the margins, but they cannot fundamentally alter South Africa’s trajectory.

South Africa’s essential foreign policy stance is also unlikely to change: the country will continue to try to balance both its partners in the BRICS—the intergovernmental organization comprising South Africa as well as Brazil, Russia, India, and China and new members Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates—and its partners in the West. This diplomatic balancing act seeks to avoid alienating any major bloc, meaning that South Africa will neither fully embrace nor fully antagonize its American, Chinese, European, or Russian partners. The country is likely to maintain a neutral stance on Ukraine and voice its opposition to perceived aggressions, such as those committed by Israel in Gaza. It will continue to call for reform to multilateral institutions from within.

 

Hidden Assets

Some analyses that tout a huge shift in South Africa anticipate that shift will be positive: if the ANC’s vote share drops below 50 percent, the argument goes, that will give the party a huge and much-needed shock, altering its attitudes and internal governance. Other observers fear the rise of left-wing parties, in particular, and worry that the struggle to build coalitions between such disparate political forces will plunge the country into chaos.

The ANC could, of course, cling to its majority. But even if it does, it will exit this election a much-diminished force. In this scenario, the ANC would still hold national power. But it would still face the prospect of coalition government in key provinces such as the all-important economic hub of Gauteng and the populous coastal region of KwaZulu Natal, where its decline appears all but certain.

The new coalition era in South Africa may well provide a vital opportunity for institutional strengthening, particularly within the parliamentary system. For nearly three decades, the ANC’s dominance allowed it to expedite decisions through parliament, often sidestepping robust debate and scrutiny. During its corruption scandals, the ANC has shielded its presidents from accountability. With no single party in control, however, South Africa’s parliament, its top court, and other accountability mechanisms can become more effective and assertive. Key functions such as budget approvals, corruption investigations, and motions of no confidence against the president will now be subject to more rigorous oversight and debate. If South Africa had coalition politics during the Nkandla scandal, Zuma would likely have been booted from office long before he was, and Ramaphosa would have faced much more accountability over the contents of his couch.

Understanding this election’s consequences will be an exercise in distinguishing the substance from the surrounding commotion. Coalitions will rise and fall, yet all this instability will occur inside a framework that promotes long-term stability. When the ANC loses its historical dominance, South Africa is likely to continue on the same trajectory it has maintained for the past 30 years—for worse and for better.

An African National Congress rally, Johannesburg, South Africa, May 2024

 

 

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