South Africa on the precipice

South Africa stands on a knife edge. After an election in which the African National Congress was dealt the most crushing election blow in its history, it will struggle to govern without support. To shore up a majority, it will either look to the Democratic Alliance (rallying cry: “rebuild South Africa”), or the uMkhonto we Sizwe party of disgraced former president Jacob Zuma (rallying cry: “scrap the constitution”). Depending on which way it jumps, South Africa could claw its way back on to a recovery path or go the way of Venezuela. 

The country’s electoral map has been turned upside down. The ANC’s share of the vote dropped below 50 per cent for the first time since 1994 to a dismal 40 per cent. That is a punishing verdict on a party that brought liberation to the majority of South Africans and that was once expected, in Zuma’s phrase, to govern “until Jesus comes”.

The ANC lost 17 percentage points from 2019. Nearly 15 of these went to Zuma’s MK party, whose appeal went beyond its core Zulu constituency. The free-market DA party barely budged from last time at 22 per cent while the radical Economic Freedom Fighters of Julius Malema fell to 9.5 per cent. Viewed another way, the ANC won 65 per cent; its problem is that it has split into three factions: Zuma’s party, Malema’s party and the governing party led by Cyril Ramaphosa.

Which way the rump ANC moves now will determine South Africa’s future for many years. One possibility is that the ANC leadership will blame Ramaphosa for the dire result by sacking him. That could pave the way for an alliance with Zuma’s MK, possibly with the EFF thrown in for good measure.

The party of Nelson Mandela would then have taken a disastrous step towards becoming a typical liberation movement seeking to perpetuate its power and ransack the state. There was already a foreshadowing of this when Zuma was president from 2009-2018, a period when state institutions were gutted, corruption flourished and growth collapsed. Now, added to that heady mix would be the “radical transformation” policies of the EFF, including nationalisations and accelerated land expropriation. Investors would stampede for the exit and the economy would shrink — leaving a Zumaesque party to loot a vanishing economy. Zuma has already revealed his predilection for trashing institutions, calling electoral fraud despite his party’s excellent showing.

There are two alternatives to the doomsday scenario. They both involve the DA and probably require Ramaphosa to hang on to the presidency, at least for now. The first is that the ANC governs as a minority administration with the help of the DA, which would be granted the Speaker of the house and effective control of the legislature. The second is a “government of national unity” — in truth an anyone-but-MK/EFF government — that could bring some semblance of sensible rule.

Things can be done to bring South Africa back from the brink. After nearly 15 years of zero growth in per capita terms, the country is crying out for the economic expansion that alone will get people back to work and provide the means to address glaring social inequalities. There are practical steps, from fixing failing power, water and transport infrastructure with the help of the private sector to ending “cadre deployment”, where jobs are given to unqualified party hacks. Ideology — whether nostalgia for an imaginary Soviet past or anathema to the private sector — must not get in the way of getting South Africa back to job-creating economic growth. 

There are plenty of people around Ramaphosa who know that this is the right path. For the sake of South Africa, they should take it.