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The original scenario analysis was developed by advisory firm Frans Cronje Private Clients for The Common Sense and set out three possible futures for South Africa to 2034.

Scenario One: The Benchmark

The first, which was set as the benchmark scenario with a probability of 65.0%, assumes that neither the African National Congress (ANC) nor the Democratic Alliance (DA) achieves national electoral majorities in the 2029 or 2034 elections. Instead, South Africa continues to operate through coalition-style arrangements. Neither the ANC nor the DA is able to generate sustained reform momentum. The ANC continues to struggle with internal fragmentation, leadership transition, and policy incoherence. The DA remains constrained by limited national reach and uneven governance credibility outside of select constituencies.

The consequence is that policy drift persists, reform remains incremental rather than structural, and state capacity improves only at the margins in selected institutions while remaining weak in others.

As a consequence, frustration with the slow pace of change accelerates behavioural adaptation, and regional and private actors take upon themselves what were once the key functions of the central state. The enclave dynamic, already visible in the economy and society beyond it, becomes so entrenched that it generates a permanent and sustainable option for the middle classes to remain in the country.

Three months after the first publication of those scenarios, The Common Sense team has decided that this remains by far the most likely outcome and is leaving its probability at 65.0%. Its reasoning includes that the ANC continues to come apart and is rejecting needed reforms ever more forcibly, the DA struggles to gain traction in government, both parties are now prepared to walk away from the Government of National Unity (GNU), public confidence in the GNU is slipping, and sentiment and practical moves towards enclave formation continue to accelerate.

See the charts below on slippage in confidence in the GNU for an insight into the team’s thinking.

Or see the chart below on the share of total South African electricity provision from Eskom versus non-Eskom sources.

Read those two charts against each other and the directional indicator for South Africa is clear.

Scenario Two: The Upside Pathway

The upside pathway represents a meaningful structural deviation from current trends and is premised on a decisive shift in political leadership within the ANC ahead of the 2029 election, or, if not then, in the 2030s, producing a reform-oriented leader capable of rebuilding confidence and re-anchoring policy credibility. The new ANC leadership stabilises internal party dynamics and reopens a reform agenda focused on infrastructure, investment conditions, and pragmatic economic restructuring. This leadership is able to secure functional cooperation with the DA within a GNU framework, converting coalition politics into a mechanism for reform rather than gridlock. The effect of this shift is a measurable improvement in business confidence and fixed investment. Growth accelerates and fiscal pressure eases through stronger revenue performance. Politically, this environment produces a rebound in ANC electoral support in 2029, with the party recovering its national majority by 2034.  The DA returns to opposition, where it remains an important institutional anchor within South Africa’s democracy and economy.

In July, The Common Sense assigned that a 20.0% probability, but events of the past month have caused it to cut that back to 15.0% for the reason that the ANC is coming apart faster than The Common Sense team had initially anticipated. Evidence for this includes the inability to submit election lists on time, growing dissent at lower levels of the party, increased infighting across all levels of the party, increasingly firm rejections of reform-minded policy from a cross-section of ANC camps, and no clarity on how Patrice Motsepe might fight his way through the ANC’s December 2027 leadership conference.

See the chart below, which will obviously have more meaning after it has been updated a few more times, on how the probabilities here have shifted.

Scenario Three: The Downside Pathway

The downside pathway reflects a breakdown in both economic discipline and political moderation. In this scenario, the ANC leadership transition produces a more populist and ideologically rigid outcome, shifting the party further leftward in response to internal pressure and electoral competition.  The DA is removed from the governing arrangement. The ANC instead moves into alignment with more radical opposition forces, including the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and elements of uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP)-aligned structures. Policy direction shifts decisively towards redistribution without growth-enhancing reform. Interventions include aggressive expropriation policies, national health insurance, expanded state control over key sectors, and a heavily constrained private-sector operating environment. The macroeconomic consequence is a sustained period of negative growth. Fiscal stress increases as revenue weakens and expenditure pressures rise, debt dynamics deteriorate, and over time, the state becomes more interventionist, producing a cycle of accelerating collapse.

This was originally assigned a 15.0% probability, but that is being upped to 20.0% for this September quarterly update. The reasons include that, on the ground, ANC, EFF, and MKP factions are moving closer together, the alternative GNU between the ANC and EFF, and in practice MKP, has further solidified, the authority of Luthuli House is increasingly disobeyed by the ANC’s extremities, public confidence in the GNU is slipping, and both the DA and ANC leadership are prepared to exit the arrangement, while the chaotic consequences of the aftermath of the local government elections raise the odds of that actually occurring. And then there is the more difficult route to the top for Patrice Motsepe.

See the chart below on the likely number of deadlocked councils after the November local government election, read against the ANC’s decline in vote share, and think about the consequences in the absence of a binding DA/ANC pact, to get an insight into the team’s thinking.

Conclusions

The team’s September assessment is that a disintegration of the Union of South Africa remains far and away the most likely pathway for the country to evolve towards. The central authority of the state will weaken further and actors at all levels of society, from illicit miners to traditional leaders, to local political kingpins, to the middle classes, will further appropriate state functions for themselves. From a material perspective, for the middle classes, this is acceptable and means that a remarkably high standard of living can be maintained for families and businesses following this newspaper’s advice on how to thrive in an enclave future. Remember that the middle-class enclaves are going to sustain economic growth rates at a multiple of the South African average. But you have to take practical steps to hedge in favour of this. A passive strategy exposes businesses, families, and individuals to extreme degrees of risk.

The Common Sense keeps getting some feedback that this view sounds negative. That is chiefly true for people who are not positioned well on their enclave quadrants. Those who are tend to have a very different take on the outlook and realise the great upsides of the enclave future.

The key change this quarter is that the upside and downside probabilities have flipped as the ANC comes apart faster, the ANC rejects reform more forcibly, and public confidence in the GNU slips, while both anchor tenants are willing to exit the arrangement.

The chart below sets out the collective shift in the scenario probabilities over the past quarter and will again be updated towards the end of the year.