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Elections in South Africa: the long walk to prosperity
For 32 years, the African National Congress (ANC) has governed South Africa. When the ANC gained power in 1994, the newly emerging 'Rainbow Nation' appeared full of promise. With an economy fully opened to the world, the former pariah state re-entered the global stage. Then President Nelson Mandela walked a perilous tightrope between appeasing white-dominated centres of power and the country’s new electorate, 62% of whom backed the ANC. 32 years later, however, the party’s grip on power seems to be slipping.
The 2024 general election was the first in the country’s democratic history in which the ANC failed to win over 50% of the vote, winning 40%. The ANC remained the largest party in the National Assembly; however, it relied on parties such as the liberal Democratic Alliance (DA) and smaller nationalist parties to form a ‘Government of National Unity’. The formation of the GNU itself represents a significant departure from South African politics. For three decades, the ANC governed with little need to accommodate competing political interests. Coalition government, whilst potentially encouraging greater accountability, has also introduced competing priorities into policymaking. GNU’s challenge is therefore not to govern effectively, but to demonstrate that a more fragmented political landscape can produce better outcomes than the dominance of a single party. The GNU has governed cautiously, aiming to deal with key issues such as power shortages, but has largely failed to deliver notable economic growth. This week, however, the GNU will face its first real electoral test.
On 4 November, South Africa will hold municipal elections which will elect local councils in every district and municipality across the country. While local in scale, these elections will signal a far more important trend: a country slowly moving away from its long-serving ruling party. Polling suggests that the DA is poised to become the largest party in major municipalities such as Pretoria, Germiston, Gqeberha and bellwether Johannesburg. The party is also projected to comfortably maintain control of Cape Town, the DA’s traditional stronghold. Another important barometer of South African politics will be Durban, where the opposition uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK), a populist party loyal to former President Jacob Zuma, is expected to win. MK has seized much of the ANC’s former support, claiming that the ANC has failed to tackle ‘deteriorating socioeconomic conditions’ but also calling for more extreme measures such as mass deportations and land expropriation.
The November elections are happening amidst a context of increasing polarisation in South Africa. The country is racked with a worsening femicide epidemic, with women killed at a rate five times the global average. The crisis is so bad that the South African government declared gender violence a national disaster last year. President Ramaphosa himself labelled South Africa ‘one of the most unsafe places to live in the world if you are a woman’ in 2019. The failure of the GNU to tackle the femicide epidemic will undoubtedly stain the ANC’s reputation, but likely not as much as it truly merits. Rates of femicide in South Africa have risen every year since 2020, and with no end in sight, government inaction inspired a campaign known as The Purple Movement. Over 700,000 social media users turned their profile purple to raise awareness. The consequences of this crisis extend beyond the immediate question of public safety. For a government whose legitimacy was built upon the promise of a more equal and democratic society, the continued prevalence of violence against women represents a particularly damaging failure.
In conjunction with growing gender-based violence, South Africa has recently experienced intense unrest fuelled by xenophobic and anti-immigration sentiment. Widespread unrest across the country prompted the government to deploy troops; one protest turned so violent that a mob lynched a foreign national in Durban. Furthermore, deaths of foreign nationals have strained relations with other African countries, with Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Ghana all taking steps to repatriate their citizens in South Africa. It is hard to blame the country’s 3 million immigrants for an unemployment rate as high as 32%. Moreover, attributing high crime rates and the aforementioned femicide to foreigners is deeply misleading when 80% of violent crimes in the country go without an identified perpetrator .
Both the femicide epidemic and the socioeconomic conditions that caused this unprecedented anti-immigration sentiment stem from catastrophic failures of government. Since the 2010s, South Africa has experienced a stagnating economy, a decline in living standards, and a steady increase in crime rates. South Africa has not yet fully recovered from the corruption that characterised the presidency of Jacob Zuma, and it seems, ironically, considering he now leads a breakaway party, that his leadership permanently damaged the ANC brand. But perhaps most telling, the country remains starkly divided by race, despite 32 years having passed since the end of Apartheid. White farmers still own roughly 50% of the country’s land, and white people in general experience far lower unemployment rates at 7% compared to the national average of 32%.
For many South Africans, voting ANC was the safe, instinctive option. It was believed that the party that won the freedom of a people was a party that could be trusted. However, 32 years later, many are starting to turn their backs on the party. The manifestation of that dissatisfaction is likely to be expressed either through voter apathy, a sentiment affecting the young in particular, or by voting for an alternative party. With both the Democratic Alliance and MK set to make substantial gains, it looks as though South Africans are looking at the other options.
Whilst these local elections will not decide the next government of South Africa, they will undoubtedly provide a useful window into the popularity of the governing ANC. South Africa's democratic transition promised a future in which political freedom would be accompanied by economic opportunity and social equality. Thirty-two years later, that promise remains unfulfilled for millions. The ANC's declining popularity may finally provide the political impetus for change, but whether alternative parties can deliver the prosperity that has so far eluded the country remains another question entirely.
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