The dramatic electoral collapse of the African National Congress (ANC) is set to transform South African politics, and poses huge challenges to the party that 30 years ago successfully led the struggle for liberation and has ruled ever since. Can the once-broad church of Nelson Mandela’s ANC, so used to ruling on its own, adapt to a new era of coalition and alliances with bitter rivals to its left or right? And can leader, president Cyril Ramaphosa, survive the party’s humiliation?
The ANC has lost its 30-year absolute majority, winning 40.2 per cent of the vote, compared to just under 58 per cent in 2019. The decline, in a country facing one of the world’s highest unemployment rates, shortages of electricity and water, and rampant crime and corruption, had been predicted, although not on this scale.
The rout was enabled and reinforced by the country’s proportional representation system which, unlike first-past-the-post regimes, rewards with substantial parliamentary representation breakaway minorities within parties. The election’s big winner was disgraced former president Jacob Zuma, whose new party, titled after the ANC’s old military wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), managed to grab a remarkable 14.6 per cent of the vote and wrested control of the second largest state, KwaZulu-Natal. MK’s willingness to join a coalition with the ANC depends, it says, on the departure of Ramaphosa.
An alternative partner for the ANC, the hard-left Economic Freedom Fighters (9.5 per cent), is also led by a former ANC stalwart, Julius Malema. Its programme, like MK’s, advocates seizing white-owned land and nationalising the country’s mines, and, although supported by many ANC members, is probably too radical for Ramaphosa, and certainly for a jittery business community.
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A coalition with the main opposition, the centre-right, market friendly, Democratic Alliance (21.8 per cent), which is already in control of Western Cape, is more likely, although that could jeopardise Ramaphosa’s position in the party. ANC chairman Gwede Mantashe says his party is unlikely to align with DA.
The ANC is in uncharted territory, faced with difficult and unpalatable choices and with essentially only two weeks to make them before it must present its candidate for president to parliament. The party insists that its black empowerment policies, aimed at giving black people a stake in the economy, rather than EFF-style expropriations, are “non-negotiable”. A coalition partner would also have to agree to the controversial National Health Insurance Bill, promising universal healthcare for all, signed into law earlier this month.
Ramaphosa faces a difficult road ahead as the ANC reconciles itself to a new era.