What the end of African National Congress’s dominance means for South Africa

Here is what the election results mean for South Africa.

ANC’s decline

Three decades ago, the ANC under Nelson Mandela, won South Africa’s first ‘all-race’ election, ushering in a new era for the deeply divided nation. The once-banned party which spearheaded the struggle to end apartheid, won a whopping 62.65% of the national vote in 1994.

Since then, the ANC has enjoyed a stranglehold over South African politics, with its vote share in national elections never dropping below the 50% mark. This is much like the popularity the Indian National Congress enjoyed in the first few decades after Independence.

In recent years, however, the ANC has seen a slow, albeit steady decline. “Many young voters did not live through apartheid… The criteria by which they evaluate a government does not rely on liberation movements… [but] on their results in areas of health, employment, economic development… The ANC’s militant past is no longer thought to provide much assistance in electoral matters,” political scientist Abdelhak Bassou wrote in a policy brief for the Policy Centre for the New South.

Coalition complications

This election marks a new low for the ANC, which will have to, for the first time, seek out a coalition partner[s] to form the government and elect its leader as President.

South Africans do not directly vote for the President. Instead, their votes determine the constitution of the National Assembly (NA) by proportional representation. The NA in turn elects the President by a simple majority (201 or more votes in the 400-member NA).

Incumbent President Cyril Ramaphosa, 71, will want to serve a second term but his party’s poor performance has complicated things. Almost 10% short of the majority, the ANC will have to woo one of the DA, MK Party, or EFF to form the government.

The MK party has said that it will not enter a coalition with ANC under the leadership of Ramaphosa. The party, founded only in December 2023, has emerged as arguably the biggest winner in the elections. Not only will it wrest power in Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu Natal, where the ANC has never lost since 1994, it has done so despite the former President being barred from standing for elections.

Zuma, once a stalwart of the anti-apartheid movement, held South Africa’s presidency from 2009-18, when he was removed from office on the back of corruption allegations. His populist proposals and rhetoric have nonetheless helped him retain a loyal voter base among poor Black South Africans. During the election campaign, he made bold promises to end unemployment and poverty, and took aim at Ramaphosa as “an agent of capital”.

The ANC can also ally with the EFF, which was formed by expelled ANC youth leader Julius Malema in 2013. Malema has promised to bring in a host of left-wing policies, most notably, to nationalise the country’s gold and platinum mines and seize land from White farmers. Even it is not able to make good on this promise, as a part of the ruling coalition, the EFF will push the centrist ANC to the left, worrying South Africa’s small, largely White, capital-owning minority, as well as foreign investors.

The business-friendly centre-right DA will be the coalition partner of choice for this class. DA’s leader, John Steenhuisen, said that he has not ruled out a coalition with the ANC, and that he wants to save South Africa from a leftwing “doomsday coalition” of the ANC, MK and EFF.

Challenges ahead

A flurry of negotiations will now take place. According to the South African constitution, the President needs to be elected within 14 days of the final election results being officially declared. Regardless of which alliance comes to power and under whom, the road forward will not be without challenges.

According to the World Bank, 55% of South Africa’s population lives in poverty. Unemployment currently stands at a staggering 33%, even as the country grapples with water, housing, and energy crises. Economic disaffection has led to a spike in crime, with homicide rates at 45 per 100,000 people, among the highest in the world — for comparison, India’s homicide rate is 2.1%, according to NCRB data from 2022.

Many people believe that “the death of ANC dominance” was necessary for the country to move in the right direction. The ANC, when it came to power in 1994, promised to uplift South Africa’s poor, Black masses. It has not only failed to do so, but has refused to acknowledge its failings. Being a part of a coalition might change that.

“I think it is good… it will open new avenues for change and new avenues for accountability,” political analyst Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh told Al Jazeera.