South Africa’s new GDP numbers show that the economy is continuing to grow slower than the population. Bheki Mahlobo, The Common Sense’s economics editor, explains to Gabriel Makin what that gap means: on a per capita basis, the average South African is poorer today than in 2008, when Thabo Mbeki left office. Bheki tells Gabriel that the same stagnation that cost the ANC its majority in 2024 is now eating into the GNU’s support, with polling from The Common Sense showing that the proportion of people who believe that the GNU is performing well starting to decline.