In South Africa, a historic setback looms for the ANC

A disappointing result for the African National Congress (ANC) was expected after elections held on May 29 in South Africa. We are heading towards an explosion. Not only does the party in power since the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994 now seem destined to lose its absolute majority in the National Assembly for the first time since the end of apartheid, but its fall could be as predicted the most pessimistic while the populist parties made an important breakthrough.

While 67.69% of polling stations were counted by the South African Electoral Commission at midday on Friday 31 May, the ANC garnered 41.78% of the vote nationally. A score expected to evolve as the count progresses but, already, several projections suggest that the party will not exceed 45% of the votes. A prospect which, if it were to be confirmed between now and the official announcement of the results expected on Sunday, would place the ANC faced with a decisive choice for the future of the country.

Particularly scrutinized, the projection of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), a public research institute, estimates that the ANC could only collect 40.5% of the votes at the national level, or seventeen points less than ‘in the last elections, in 2019, when the party won hands down with 57.5% of the vote.

The media News24 for its part projects a slightly higher score, but just as catastrophic for the ANC, of ??41.3%. More optimistically, the eNCA channel is the only one to estimate that the African National Congress could – somewhat – limit the damage with 45% of the votes.

Incredible breakthrough for Jacob Zuma’s party

“The truth is, it was hanging over our heads. Voters voted while there are power cuts, the water supply is disappearing, unemployment is at its highest and crime remains very high as well,” observes, placidly, the vice-president of the ANC veterans’ league, Mavuso Msimang, who has long denounced the weakness of the fight against corruption within the party.

If this decline was predicted to a certain extent, the origin of the crushing defeat which is taking shape can be explained by another surprise: the incredible breakthrough of the party of former president Jacob Zuma, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), whose the result should surpass poll predictions for this party that was non-existent just a few months ago.

“Clearly, Mr Zuma has returned to the center of political life. MK’s performance is simply astonishing,” breathes political analyst Richard Calland. Accused of having exploded the level of corruption during his mandate (2009-2018), Jacob Zuma returned to sow chaos in South African politics by announcing that he would join the MK party in December 2023, a formation created on the sly three months earlier with the stated ambition of precipitating the fall of the ANC. We knew that the formation risked hurting the liberation party, in the key province of Kwazulu-Natal in particular. She knocked him down.

If the results are confirmed, the MK would become the third political force in South Africa and the first in Kwazulu-Natal, the second most populous province in the country. According to the CSIR, he should gather 44.9% of the votes in this region where the former president comes from. In the township of Umlazi, in the suburbs of Durban, the MK won 71% of the votes. Even in Soweto, the center of the struggle against apartheid, where the ANC still won 73% of the vote in 2019, the party previously in power lost the majority, with 49% of the vote.

A Zulu nationalist component

“Jacob Zuma unites many supporters around his personality. He has been able to capture the attention of those who feel left out and rejected by the establishment. “Just like Mr. Trump and other leaders, he is mobilizing people’s worst fears and instincts,” continues Richard Calland.

Accused of corruption in the context of an arms sales contract with the French group Thales dating back to the end of the 1990s and forced to resign by his party in 2018 against a backdrop of multiple scandals, Jacob Zuma presents himself as the victim of a plot hatched by his successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, accused of being in the pay of a “white capitalist monopoly”. A fan of crowd bathing, he “knows how to talk to people”, insisted one of his supporters interviewed before the elections. A charisma that even his opponents recognize.

“What I cannot explain is that for twenty years Jacob Zuma was one of the most senior, if not the most senior, leaders of the ANC in the country,” underlines Mavuso Msimang. The veteran of the liberation struggle believes that the former president ensured his popularity by leading his crusade against his former comrades: “My feeling is that it is a vote against the ANC before being a vote for Jacob Zuma. »

“There is also a Zulu nationalist component,” adds Richard Calland. This is a worrying element for everyone and for the ANC in particular, which has always strived to fight against tribal or ethnic divisions in politics. » To a lesser extent, the good scores of the Patriotic Alliance, a party created in 2013 which primarily targets the colored (mixed race) electorate, confirms the growth of ethnonationalist parties.

What alliances for the ANC?

Beyond the radicalization of South African political life, the results of this election could leave the ANC facing a crucial choice. His minority in the National Assembly, which no longer seems to be in doubt, will force him to form a coalition to stay in power and elect a president. However, there remains a major uncertainty: will the party manage to stay above 45%?

If this is the case, he could form an alliance with small parties to retain power while maintaining the course of his policies. If, as several projections predict, it falls below this threshold, the ANC will have to form an alliance with one or more parties among its main opponents. Two options are emerging with radically opposite contours.

On the one hand, a “grand coalition” with the Democratic Alliance, a center-right party which advocates liberal reforms. This prospect, like that of a government of national unity, would reassure financial circles. At the other end of the spectrum, the ANC could form an alliance with the Freedom Fighters party (EFF) and/or that of Jacob Zuma, two populist groups whose arrival in power could “create panic among investors », fears Mavuso Msimang.