“Past performance is not indicative of future performance.”

This is the kind of tagline one often sees on marketing for investment products. It is a warning that one should always remember that we shouldn’t rely too much on what has happened in the past to predict or anticipate the future.

A company that has provided great returns may not do so in the future, if the environment which it operates in changes and it is incapable of adapting to that. Or it may experience a change in management with the new bosses incapable of maintaining the heights that came before.

But there is another area of life where this truism should be applied, and this is to South African politics.

More fluid

South African politics is more fluid than it’s been at any point since transition of the early 1990s – arguably it is more fluid than it has been at any time since we became a unitary state 115 years ago.

And looking back over that period one thing that is certain about South African politics is that nothing is certain.

From the toenadering between archfoes Jan Smuts and Barry Hertzog in the early 1930s to form the United Party, to the National Party’s shock victory in 1948, to the relatively peaceful transition away from apartheid in the early 1990s (an outcome which very few expected in the 1980s) South African politics has often thrown up the unexpected.

More recently the relatively conservative fiscal policies of the ANC in the 1990s and early 2000s would also have surprised most observers. For much of the latter part of the struggle the ANC had espoused communist and Marxist rhetoric, with many believing that if the party ever came to power it would nationalise South Africa’s mines and major companies. Instead the ANC followed fairly orthodox economic policies, which resulted in high economic growth and a budget surplus in the early 2000s.

Surprised

Even the formation of the GNU itself surprised many observers – a significant number of people believed that if the ANC fell below 50% it would inevitably form a governing coalition with the EFF rather than the DA, which was what actually happened.

But another area where we shouldn’t look to past performance to indicate future performance is that of the ANC itself. The ANC has shrunk from a high-water mark, twenty years ago, where the party won the votes of nearly seven-in-ten South African voters supported it. There is no need to rehash the party’s disastrous performance in last year’s general election, but the party has shed almost half its support.

But it appears that this haemorrhaging of support is not going to be staunched any time soon. Most polls show that the ANC is continuing to lose support. This has serious implications for the party ahead of the next local government elections, which are likely to be held late next year or early in 2027.

By-election results also show that the ANC is facing attacks from numerous fronts.

Foolish

It is clear that it is now foolish to believe that the ANC’s past performance will be indicative of its future performance. The ANC ship is now listing badly and could well not be worth salvaging.

Some will also tell you that the broad ANC voting bloc (made up of the ANC and its offspring – MK and the EFF) in impenetrable to the DA and other parties. Of course, some people would never be open to voting for the DA or related parties but it is clear that there are more “floating” voters than there were before.

And evidence from Johannesburg itself shows this.

For example, in 2011 the ANC won nearly 60% of the vote in Johannesburg. In 2016, the combined ANC and EFF vote had dropped to 56%. In the last local government election, held in November 2021 the combined ANC and EFF vote was 43%. And the EFF’s vote share actually declined slightly between 2016 and 2021 so it is clear that at least some of the ANC-bloc voters have defected to other parties.

And other metros have shown similar patterns where the combined ANC-EFF vote has tumbled.

And polling from the Social Research Foundation shows that perhaps as many as a quarter of people who voted for the ANC in 2024 could now be classified as “floating” voters – former ANC voters who are open to voting for other parties including parties outside the broad ANC bloc.

When it comes to voters we can paraphrase our adage from the beginning of this piece: “Past behaviour is not indicative of future behaviour.”

History shows us that South African politics can surprise – and often on the upside. Fixing this country and many of our cities will be difficult but throwing our collective hands up in the air and lamenting nothing can change because the ANC is entrenched and so are its voters is foolish.

Change, and change for the better, can come quickly. Be prepared. A lens on this historical record suggests that agility and open-mindedness are essential to navigating South Africa’s political future.