FIRST SCENARIO
South Africa's future is finely balanced as a contest looms between ANC reformers and traditionalists for the swing vote.
This struggle comes to a head during the ANC's elective conference in December and will determine our course for the next decade.
President Jacob Zuma has become a huge liability for the ANC. Policy confusion and the (in)actions of the Zuma administration have lowered growth, increased poverty and threatened the fabric of society. For the ANC to go into the 2019 elections with Zuma at the helm would be disastrous.
In my forecast of election outcomes in 2019 and beyond, I rely on a broad distinction between three ANC groupings. The traditionalists and reformers represent the party's two main ideological orientations. The balance of forces lies in the third, the swing vote.Zuma and his preferred successor, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, lead the traditionalists, who are broadly rural, black nationalist and socially conservative.
They are committed to a centralised state and redistributive policies, and have been closely associated with corruption.
The reformers are led by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. They are largely urban, multi-ethnic and younger voters.
They generally believe in a mixed economy and the importance of inclusive economic growth and are appalled by the extent of corruption and patronage - but also include many who simply want their turn at the trough.
What happens will largely be determined by the swing vote, which has not committed itself.
I have modelled three scenarios.
The first and most likely scenario sees the ANC choose unity above all other considerations. It goes into the 2019 elections with a new but conflicted team that talks left and walks right. The swing voters will not vote in sufficient quantities to stop the ANC from suffering an unprecedented drubbing at the polls, its support dipping to 53%.
The ANC will lose control of Gauteng to a DA-led coalition in 2019 and by 2024 the DA will secure an outright Gauteng majority. The loss of South Africa's economic heartland will deal the ANC a fatal blow.SECOND SCENARIO
The second and worst-case scenario sees South Africa steadily gather speed downhill as factional politics and policy zigzagging open the door to populism and further fracturing of the ANC.
The ANC splits ahead of the 2019 elections after the traditionalists under Dlamini-Zuma sweep to victory at the elective conference, becoming more populist and adopting policies lowering growth with increased unemployment, poverty and social turbulence.The inevitable implosion of the ANC is eventually to the benefit of the DA, which could govern South Africa as part of a coalition from as early as 2024.
By then South Africa's economic and democratic momentum would have slowed. The government would borrow more with declines in investment. Poverty would be grinding, and violent protests would increase.
THIRD SCENARIO
The third scenario sees the country pursuing a clear economic and developmental vision after the reformist faction sweeps to victory in December 2017 and a reinvigorated ANC retains its majority during the 2019, 2024 and 2029 elections, based on pro-employment policies that facilitate growth.
Getting to the third pathway will require modernising the ANC, reforming education, and a partnership where the state is responsible for regulation and redistribution and the private sector for growth and employment.
Compared to 2016, by 2034 the economy could be 80% larger in the third scenario, 50% larger under the first or just 30% larger under the second.
South Africa in 2017 is an infinitely better place than it was in 1990, but the past decade has been wasted. There is nothing we can do about the past. But we can change the future.
• Cilliers is chairman of the board at the Institute for Security Studies and author of 'Fate of the Nation', published by Jonathan Ball..