The Government of National Unity (GNU) will not endure into 2028, and the African National Congress (ANC) will rapidly decline. The Democratic Alliance (DA), however, will not be in a position to fill this gap.

This is according to Prince Mashele, prominent academic, author, and director of the Centre for Politics and Research. He was speaking to YouTuber THEE Sama Sambit, in an interview carried by the Truth Report.

Mashele contended that the GNU would not survive the departure of President Cyril Ramaphosa. He said that when the ANC held its next National Conference, at the end of 2027, the successor would turn on Ramaphosa and end the GNU arrangement.

“My prediction is that that new leader of the ANC will not preserve the GNU because the mood and the electoral victory that will propel that leader will be an anti-GNU sentiment. So, the moment that leader takes over they will actually be populist and want to appease those would have elected that leader on an anti-GNU sentiment.”

President Ramaphosa would be removed from office (or would resign) before the next State of the Nation Address, as had happened to Presidents Mbeki and Zuma. Without his influence, the ANC would break the GNU, Mashele argued.

He said that the ANC itself was “braindead”, and “while it's not time to throw it into a coffin and bury it yet, but I can assure you it will be buried very soon”. Mashele argued that the ANC had always been a party of intellectuals, but this had changed abruptly under President Zuma. It also had no intellectual depth left. “You will struggle to find anyone [in the ANC] who could be regarded as a serious thinker.”

In a literal sense, the ANC had “lost its mind”. It had, Mashele commented, “operated as a mindless bunch whose main business has been to loot whatever they could loot that was in front of them”.

Moving beyond the ANC was complicated by what Mashele described as the “dictatorship of no alternatives”, with no other party presenting a credible challenge as a prospective government.

South Africans had realised that the Economic Freedom Fighters and its leader, Julius Malema, had nothing to offer (though Mashele was sceptical that Malema would serve time in prison after his recent conviction). The DA had performed well as an opposition, Mashele said, but did not have the calibre of leadership that could take the country forward. He also reiterated the criticism that the DA had not addressed racial concerns and came across as a “white party”.

“A human being, when he stands in the mirror, he wants to see himself. He doesn't want to see a neighbour who's pretty,” said Mashele.

Dealing with South Africa’s problems demanded that the best of both white and black South Africans had to come together to conduct politics and propose solutions, Mashele said.

He also dwelled at length on the failure of governance, and the withdrawal of the middle class and talented people from politics. This has driven South Africa into the territory of state failure; what is functioning is now largely in the private sector.

“Our best talent,” he said, “is actually in the private sector. And I move around in politics. I also move around in in the private sector. I can tell you I have come across the best black talent. I've come across the best white talent in the private sector. What have we left behind when we withdraw? We left politics to be a theatre of scoundrels.”

Mashele has announced that he will be launching a political initiative. Echoing some of his talking points, he said that the ANC leadership needed to be indicted as criminals, and that the country as a whole should prioritise reasserting law and order. A collapsed criminal justice system – particularly the police and prosecting authority – needed to be restored.

Turning to his advice for frustrated young people, Mashele appealed to them to educate themselves and to read widely to understand the world. They needed to find new, better role models, not the tenderpreneurs who were impoverishing the country and stealing their futures.