South Africa’s foreign policy posture came under renewed scrutiny this week after the country failed to support a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) vote calling for a special session on Iran’s deteriorating human rights situation.

The criticism was led by the Democratic Alliance (DA), which said the governing African National Congress (ANC) had again aligned itself with an authoritarian regime accused of mass violence against civilians. Ryan Smith, the DA’s spokesperson on international relations, said the vote exposed “the ANC’s hypocrisy on international relations” and its unwillingness to confront abuses committed by allies.

According to the United Nations (UN), 21 UNHRC members were recorded as supporting the request to convene the special session at the time it was lodged. The remaining members, including South Africa, were not listed as supporters of the request. Those countries included Angola, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Burundi, China, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Pakistan, Vietnam, and others.

That list matters because it highlights a deeper credibility problem at the council. Of the 26 members not recorded as backing the vote for a session on Iran, at least 12 are themselves facing long-running human rights abuse allegations from UN bodies or major international rights organisations, sharply blunting the moral authority of their silence.

According to Smith, the failure to support the UNHRC vote “confirms the [ANC’s] ongoing explicit support for the brutal regime in Iran, and its subsequent complicity in the massacre of thousands of anti-government protesters”. He argued that the stance contradicted both South Africa’s constitutional commitment to human rights and the Government of National Unity’s stated intention to act on principle rather than party loyalty.

The DA said the decision had further damaged South Africa’s standing abroad. Smith accused the ANC of practising selective morality, saying the party “will only engage in diplomatic morality when it suits their pocket or their electoral prospects”.

Attention was also drawn to the absence of the Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Ronald Lamola. Smith said the minister had been “missing in action when faced with one of the most brutal human rights atrocities in recent history by a BRICS Plus member”.

The response from the Presidency to earlier DA calls for South Africa to report Iran to the UNHRC was also criticised. Smith said the demand was met with a statement urging “restraint and dialogue”, adding that, “The time for restraint has long gone when the blood of over 5 000 civilians now stains the hands of the theocratic Iranian regime.”

Smith referenced reporting by the British Broadcasting Corporation which he said showed images of “the bloodied, swollen, and bruised faces of at least 326 victims of the Iranian civilian massacre leaked to journalists from the south Tehran mortuary”, including “women and young adolescents”.

He concluded that South Africa’s silence was “not just an indictment on our country as a supposed international torchbearer for human rights, but on the ANC leadership that has traded ethics and morality for political power”, adding that the party “has no legitimacy referring to itself as a liberation movement if it remains complicit in the atrocities committed by the Iranian government against its own people”.

Smith said the episode highlighted a deeper problem in South Africa’s foreign policy, warning that continued alignment driven by ideology rather than national interest risks long-term costs for the country’s global credibility and its citizens.