It is extraordinary to watch what’s looking like the implosion of the ANC. The newest numbers show the party slipping to below 30% amongst voters in Gauteng. In 1994 the party got 58% of the vote in that province. That lifted to 68% in 1999 and held at that level in 2004. In 2009 the number came off slightly to reach 66%. The big step-down came in 2014 as the party lost more than 10 percentage points to end on 54%. In 2019 it just clung to 50%. And in 2024 it fell into the low 30s.

And now something very much lower beckons. A wandering albatross recalls being called in to brief the provincial ANC after the 2014 result but that none of the advice was taken up. What is so extraordinary is that the ANC does not seem to care that what generations of its cadres worked so hard to build stands to be lost.

It seems likely now that Helen Zille will lead the charge against the ANC in next year’s (or early 2027’s) local government elections from the platform of the mayoral race for Johannesburg. If much of what the press, activists, and analysts have written about Zille over the past 20 years were true the ANC would be rejoicing. They’re not – which suggests the ANC knows that a point has been reached where voter interests in better governance outranks concerns about social media drama.

Zille’s race could be the most important political play in 30 years. If she leads the DA to a win, and then makes progress in turning the city around, a big chunk of the ANC vote may break for the DA come 2029 – an election in which the ANC will be without Cyril Ramaphosa.

Little interest

The government seems to have little interest in striking a truly great trade and investment deal with the US. South Africa’s trade officials continue to talk about blueberries and pork when massive energy builds leading to a revitalisation of even the steel industry and from there a sweeping infrastructure transformation of the country might have been tabled.

Maybe there is a lack confidence on the part of the South African government dealmakers and a sense, in Pretoria, that so much has gone wrong that doing something truly great that could transform the country is simply too far fetched to be entertained.

The ANC seems to kick back against any advice that might save it. Any group with an interest in bringing the party to its knees could have done no better than to advise policies sure to curb the generation of electricity, reduce the calibre of the civil service, and shape an investment environment more hostile than that of an array of South Africa’s emerging market peers. If it ever does an accounting of its friends and its enemies the ANC would do well to apply that test to any entity that has provided it or the government policy advice over the past 30 years.

Odd

Some of our friends think it odd but it is genuinely sad to see what has become of the ANC. Remember that when it was hounded into the arms of the Soviets and the East Germans it was at the height of the Cold War. The full horrors of communism were not yet fully known.

Many of its cadres had no idea how their joining of the movement would end. They did not know that the Cold War would end or that apartheid would eventually collapse, they only knew that their participation in the liberation struggle would come at great personal cost to them and their families and at great danger. How many people today would leave their family, home, and their country to fight for the political cause of freedom with no idea of how that fight might end?

That’s why it is almost uncouth for the ANC’s current descent to be met with rejoicing. More appropriate might be solemn reflection out of the respect for the people who sacrificed so much in the name of that party. But reflection that would extend to understand that South Africa’s people should never suffer under the ANC and that in as far as that has occurred change is welcome.