Investors now demand only about 4 percentage points more to lend to South Africa than to America, close to the lows of the Mbeki years. The Common Sense's economics editor Bheki Mahlobo explains to Gabriel Makin how markets price South Africa's risk, how that price swung from the Asian crisis in 1997 through the 2007 ANC Conference in Polokwane, Nenegate, and Covid, and why the GNU pushed it back down.

But there are a number of factors the markets haven't priced in. These include the uncertainty around the November municipal elections which will see more councils than ever before without majorities, the possibility of "overhang" (where a party can win a greater share of seats than their share of the vote), and possible court challenges to election results as a consequence of this. There are also the complications of a GNU which both main parties are ready to leave and a weakened President Cyril Ramaphosa.