For three decades, the African National Congress was the unquestioned heartbeat of South African democracy. It carried the moral weight of liberation, the legacy of Nelson Mandela, and the hope of millions who had waited a lifetime to cast a free vote. But something has shifted. The ANC that once won elections with more than 60 percent of the vote now finds itself in unfamiliar territory — negotiating, compromising, and fighting for political survival in a country it once seemed to own entirely.
The 2024 general election was a turning point that many saw coming but few wanted to admit out loud. For the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994, the ANC fell below 50 percent of the national vote, finishing with roughly 40 percent. That number, printed in bold across newspaper front pages the morning after results were announced, told a story that went beyond electoral arithmetic. It told the story of a governing party that had lost the trust of a significant portion of its own constituency.
The reasons are not hard to find. South Africa under ANC leadership has seen unemployment climb to among the highest levels in the world, with youth joblessness hovering above 60 percent in some provinces. Electricity blackouts — known locally as load shedding — became a daily feature of life for years, disrupting businesses, spoiling food, and grinding essential services to a halt. Corruption, too, has been a persistent wound. The years of state capture under former president Jacob Zuma left institutions hollowed out and public trust deeply eroded. Despite subsequent commissions and legal proceedings, many South Africans feel that accountability has moved too slowly and too cautiously.
What makes the ANC’s decline particularly complicated is that it is not simply a story of voter dissatisfaction with a party. For many South Africans, especially older generations, the ANC is intertwined with identity, sacrifice, and the memory of struggle. Walking away from it is not a clean political calculation — it carries emotional weight. Yet walk away they did, in millions.
The party that benefited most dramatically from this disillusionment was not the long-established Democratic Alliance, which made modest gains, but the newly formed uMkhonto we Sizwe Party, associated with former president Zuma. The MK Party swept large portions of KwaZulu-Natal, a province the ANC had long considered a stronghold, and emerged as the third-largest party in parliament. Its rise spoke to something raw and potent in the electorate — a hunger for disruption, a rejection not just of the current ANC leadership but of the post-apartheid political order as many experienced it.
The ANC’s response was to form a Government of National Unity, pulling together a coalition of parties including its historical rival the DA and others across the ideological spectrum. Supporters called it pragmatic statesmanship. Critics called it a party desperately clinging to the levers of power by any means available. Both characterizations carry some truth.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has tried to frame the unity government as a mature, democratic response to a fragmented electorate. He has spoken about shared responsibility and national interest. But governing within a coalition requires a kind of political agility and tolerance for compromise that the ANC, accustomed to dominant power, has not historically needed to develop.
The ANC is not finished. It still commands the largest share of the vote. It still shapes the national agenda. But it governs now in the knowledge that its dominance is no longer automatic — and that the South African voter has found the confidence to say so clearly at the ballot box.
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