LUCKY MATHEBULA | Can we truly envision a post-apartheid South Africa without the ANC?

The May 2024 election outcomes have increased the prospects of having a South Africa without the ANC for the foreseeable future since 1994. Its inability to garner the 50-plus-one majority has redefined how political power can be used to advance any of its political agendas. The 2024/25 budget year reversal of the VAT increase and reopening the fiscal framework negotiations indicate how political power sharing is a South African reality until one of the parties reaches the threshold to govern alone. 

The public service, which theconstitution expects to loyally execute the lawful policies of the government of the day, in this case the GNU, is scrambling to react to the new guidelines emanating from a profoundly reconfigured body politic. As much as it is essential to pass a national budget for the state to function, how the DA, as part of the GNU, reacted to the budget demonstrated the arrival and influence of a new hegemony at the centre of state-wide planning, funding and execution.

This does not bode well for the state's ability to conclude matters, including international treaties and protocols, unless it is subjected to the same power-sharing rigour as the budget. The VAT and related reversal has set a precedent for coalition government policymaking; if the out-of-court settlement is anything to go by, it might even be case law. What is becoming clearer is the inconvenient reality of the growing power of the majority of minorities and a monumental collapse of absolute majoritarianism in South Africa's body politic. 

The reliance on democratic centralism as a decision-making model in the cabinet and as part of the democratic order has fallen apart. The expectation that cabinet decisions will be carried and possibly even implemented as differences are negotiated has been dealt a blow.

It's no secret that the ANC remains the most organised force that could spark a new revolution in South Africa.

The budget pushback marks the end of ANC primacy and hegemony. Seen together with its GNU partners, the ANC is now part of a shared hegemony. Because the May 2024 outcome forced it, it is unfortunately a majority of the rest with the weakest power to finalise alone. The ANC’s errors in how it relates or responds to the new coalition context, and with one of the continent's experienced opposition politics juggernauts, are costly to its ability to recover from the May 2024 power liquidation. 

Unless there is a pragmatic relationship with the changed balance of forces, this downward spiral will be one from which there is no real hope of recovery, at least not on time horizons that political recoveries tend to use.

South African political power is now spread; it is unavailable as a unit, and different nodes of influence hold the stakes. Notwithstanding, the ANC should be commended as a dominant hegemon in the aftermath of May 2024, when absolute power to govern disintegrated, for using its political and social capital as the fulcrum to hold the democratic order together. 

Now part of a shared hegemony with its GNU partners, the ANC is grappling with its new role. The DA-led opposition complex views the ANC as the leader of the GNU, but not necessarily the ideal one. For the ANC, withdrawing from the current GNU arrangement could risk the collapse of the constitutional order it has spent more than a century building. The party's struggle to maintain its historical role in this new political landscape is evident. 

Unfortunately for the ANC, it is on the supply side of the political stability creation equation. Because of its historical obligation to liberation and current below-threshold majority position, it is expected to supply the conditions for cooperation. The easy route of assembling a “previously ANC” coalition without the DA has a demand-driven element that might reverse some of the constitutional order's nonracialism gains. The ANC will always have diminished influence in a South Africa that relies less on nonracialism. 

In ANC nomenclature, the role of the leader of society that it has abrogated to itself in South Africa dominates how it relates to the various political challenges. Most political parties in parliament support working with the ANC for their interests. The ANC realises that ad hoc issue-by-issue coalescing in a multiparty system rife with competition is impractical, hence the GNU choice. What is unfortunate is that in the GNU arrangement, it has thus far never been able to be a dominant hegemon. It has been reduced to a thermostat that regulates the latent political tensions. 

It's no secret that the ANC remains the most organised force that could spark a new revolution in South Africa. Its decision to operate within the constitutional order to address national grievances is a testament to its insightful leadership. This begs the question: can South Africa be imagined without the ANC? 

The formation of the MK Party and the rhetoric it is advancing, as well as the proliferation of smaller parties, illustrate that there are political interests that do not have an effective centre to coalesce around. In similar conditions, a grand coalition formed around a leader, leadership model or specific issue tends to emerge and reconfigure the power architecture. The maturity of leadership in the emerging non-DA-led opposition complex will determine what direction South Africa takes in the unlikely event that the ANC goes absent without leave from the centre.

Under any scenario, the ANC will continue to hold a significant number of seats in parliament and will be a key player in any coalition. However, it may find itself in a position of influence without being in charge, except to pursue its NDR objectives. With the SACP's chosen independent path, many left-leaning ANC supporters may unfavourably shift the balance of power. The appeal of leftist discourse to the poor and downtrodden in the context of South Africa's sustained inequality is a potent mix, potentially paving the way for a leftist political party to rise to prominence. 

Suppose we accept that the Zuma years in the ANC stand out as the most dramatic moment of institutional breakdown since the founding of the ANC in 1912, one that sets it apart from all subsequent polarised eras. In that case, the prospects of growing back to past glory with the MKP, and arguably the SACP, outside the orbit of ANC influence are very slim. The resultant identity vote mobilisation created new allegiances outside the nonracialism objectives espoused in the 1996 constitution, predominantly racial and tribal, which divided constituencies in multiple ways, making them an unreliable basis for ever building a national majority. 

The ANC's social cohesion sensitivity in its recorded policy documents is an asset no other political party has openly advocated for, save for the optics this provides to attract voters. Nonracialism is a difficult concept to live in, ideologically or otherwise. The racecard, a source of grievances in South Africa, whether for status quo maintenance or fracturing, has become a political mobilisation tool and a vector of all analyses.

Unless a national dialogue on the future of South Africa takes place and the constitutional objectives of establishing a South Africa founded on the values of nonracialism, non-sexism, social and economic justice across the board, the achievement of equality, and the advancement of human rights and freedoms, the demon of racism might engulf the country. Suppose the dialogue or similar does not happen. Many political mavericks who find themselves compromised in the racecard and identity politics sense, all scrambling to protect narrow, short-term interests without sufficient leverage or influence in a South Africa that is growing dangerous, will carve out areas of anarchy where they need to feel secure. 

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