What the South African Elections Say about Its Democracy

Since democratisation, the left-wing African National Congress (ANC) has been the dominant party of South African politics. But for the first time since 1994, the general election in May 2024 did not provide an absolute majority for the ANC, which won just over 40% of the vote. This outcome forced the incumbent president Cyril Ramaphosa to form a coalition in order to retain sufficient seats for re-election. The ANC then announced a deal with the main right-wing opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), plus the small Ithaka Freedom Party (IFP). This announcement appeased markets, which had feared the opposite: a coalition with more radical left-wing parties.

Why did the ANC choose an alliance with the right? This decision is likely linked to previous ones taken a long time ago. In the last years of Apartheid, many members of the white elites envisioned a pacted transition to democracy, as a solution that would mitigate conflict but also prevent radical redistribution. It was they who decided to democratise, even though democracy would almost inevitably entail the election of the highly popular ANC, Apartheid’s direct rival. The rationale was that in a democracy, the ANC would have to deal with the complexities of competition under a system of checks and balances. Additionally, democracy tends to privilege the role of money, which white elites retained. In sum, democracy may not be the best regime if one wishes for fast and radical change. Pieter du Toit has described how the South African business community was quick to recruit key ANC leaders into corporations in an attempt to merge corporate interests with those of the ANC.

The ANC used the deal with the white elites to its own benefit, thereby becoming the main political force in the country.  As a result, many see a country whose leaders have distanced themselves somewhat from the hardships that most South Africans experience. But the ANC is not under the spell of the “discreet charm of the bourgeoisie”, it is bound by the political choices that make democracy possible. The ANC used the deal with the white elites to its own benefit, thereby becoming the main political force in the country. The party thus has strong incentives to respect the basis of this deal. In my research project on democracy and land redistribution, which compares the cases of Brazil, Chile, and South Africa, I find that left-wing incumbents that participated in pacted transitions have to stress their commitment to the market economy model, as a shift towards meaningful redistribution is a deal-breaker for economic elites. For instance, one of the main tasks facing ANC administrations since day one has been to reshape land ownership through a land reform policy that could effectively undo the legacy of Apartheid. Moreover, the land issue was foundational for the ANC long before the formalisation of Apartheid, as shown by Tembeka Ngcukaitobi. However, redistributive land reform would have confronted the interests of the rural Afrikaner elite and it would have signalled to other white elites that the ANC was serious about redistribution. And so the ANC did not promote a radical land reform plan, but rather an extremely market-friendly version of land reform.

It is true that the record of the ANC in office also shows significant advances in fighting poverty as well as in creating new black middle and upper classes. In this sense, the legacy of Apartheid is being slowly but steadily reversed, as the country’s elite becomes less white-dominated. On the other hand, making the elite more diverse does little for the average South African. It may seem clear to observers of South Africa that the country has been in a spiral of crises at least since the election of Jacob Zuma in 2009. Scandals, crime, unemployment and the never-ending energy shortage provide the picture of a government in disarray. Dissatisfaction with the ANC and with politics in general comes up in almost any political conversation one may have with South Africans of different class backgrounds. They seem to share a sense of disbelief that is not alien to so many democracies.

But there are several possible reasons why South Africans still vote for the ANC. As part of the settled transition, the ANC was able to craft the country’s representative institutions, as shown by Jessica Piombo. Centralised and majoritarian institutions downplay local ethnic interests in favour of wider constituencies that include different groups, making the median voter theorem a powerful model for the country. The classic  theorem in political science states that voters in the middle of preferences distribution end up deciding election outcomes. And the ANC was granted (or built) a sweet spot in the resulting party system because its opponents occupy either the tails of the left-right ideological spectrum, or appeal only to ethnic minorities.

Until not long ago, there were only two other parties in South Africa capable of mobilising voters. On the right, the Democratic Alliance (DA) gathered whites and a few ANC deserters under a neoliberal platform, a hard sell in a country with so many redistributive demands. Furthermore, the image of the DA as a white party is hard to counterbalance, in particular because former black members of its own leadership have denounced just that. Consequently, it is hard for the DA to reach out to median voters. On the left, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) seemed to be set on a path for electoral growth. The EFF is composed of former (mostly younger) ANC officials, offering voters a “vintage” version of the old Marxist ANC. The EFF’s ideas of radical redistribution and even political violence appeal to many, but find resistance among moderates. However, in the 2024 election, a fourth political force emerged on the left, the uMkhonto weSizwe party (MK), under the leadership of former president Zuma. Like the EFF, the MK also revives ANC nostalgia, naming itself after the old armed branch of the ANC. The MK performed well last May, gathering 14.5% of the vote. It did amazingly well in Zuma’s home province Kwa-Zulu Natal, where it received over 40% of the vote. The EFF received 9.5% and the DA received 20.8%, nationally.

In theory, after the 2024 election, the ANC could have made a coalition with the MK and the EFF and pushed the government towards the left. This would not only have been consistent with its own ideology, but it would have reunited leaders who were all at some point ANC members themselves. But, in the eyes of the South African elite, this would have created what those in DA circles call a “doomsday coalition”. In fact, the opposite took place: even in the face of significant resistance from his allies, Ramaphosa chose to form a government with the DA. Perhaps surprisingly for some, so far the ANC-DA administration has resembled much more a typical ANC government than an ANC-EFF-MK alliance probably would have. From the perspective of the former opposition, the situation is also quite paradoxical. Having harshly criticised Ramaphosa as corrupt and incompetent, the DA and its inner circle seem now relieved that he was capable of securing a second term.

The 2024 elections reinforced the role of the ANC as the dominant political player in South Africa, even if it lost its absolute majority.  In sum, the 2024 elections reinforced the role of the ANC as the dominant political player in South Africa, even if it lost its absolute majority. But the party’s options are bound by the country’s power structures, which the ANC itself helped engineer during the transition. The white elite seems incapable, for now, of challenging the ANC’s rule and has thus opted to give the party its blessing, in exchange for its compromise with the market economy (plus a few cabinet positions). This was an easy sell for the ANC, as its previous majority governments had already offered a version of this type of commitment. The opposition on the left showed greater strength than anticipated with the rise of the MK. However, much of the growth of Zuma’s party may have come from potential EFF voters, a party which underperformed in the election. In future, it will not be easy for Ramaphosa to re-energise voters and to keep playing the Apartheid card without at least mitigating unemployment, criminal violence and the energy crisis. Yet, as noted, part of the ANC’s electoral success may be independent from its performance, simply because for the moment there is no opponent that appeals to South Africa’s “median voters”.