Uncertainty as SA reaches a turning point
After 30 years of democracy, the country is entering a new political phase
Uncertainty over who will form a national government in 2024 is likely to dominate the political agenda as parties prepare to slug it out in what has been described as the most crucial elections since 1994.
This is the view of two leading political analysts who told the Sunday Times that South Africa’s 30th year of democracy is set to be a turning point.
Polls by leading institutions have indicated that the ANC is likely to fall short of the 50% plus one required for it to form a national government on its own.
The political year will start in earnest when the ANC hosts its January 8 celebrations at Mbombela Stadium in Mpumalanga to mark its 112th birthday, which it is likely to glimpse of its electoral manifesto, which will be unveiled later in the year.
The DA and EFF will launch their manifestos in February. The EFF has indicated this will be at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, while the DA will do so in Pretoria.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is scheduled to deliver the last state of the nation address of his first term on February 8.
While the date of the 2024 elections is yet to be announced, political analyst say the poll will be a test of maturity for South Africa’s democracy.
“The upcoming elections have the quality of a maturing democracy — which is uncertainty of outcomes,” said Ongama Mtimka, a lecturer and political analyst at Nelson Mandela University. “It’s a quality of a maturing democracy when it cannot be said with certainty who is likely to win an election and, theoretically, it’s supposed to increase what is called regime performance — the likelihood of an incumbent government to perform, driven by an assumption that not all is given come the next election.”
Mtimka believes that in terms of political party competition, the stakes will be even higher in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
But he is confident South Africa has a degree of maturity to deal with a change of government as “we have seen changes in government at both local and provincial levels that were largely seamless”.
South Africans will also keep an eye next year on the soaring cost of living given current interest rate levels, the cost of fuel, and joblessness in a struggling economy, said Mtimka.
Lukhona Mnguni, policy and research director at the Rivonia Circle think-tank, said a weakened ANC might be the story of 2024.
“I think generally we are in a space of nervousness, because people are panicking about what comes after the ANC. They are trying to gauge the situation and it’s creating clutter in the political landscape.”
Mnguni predicted that Gauteng could fall under a coalition government after the elections, “and we have no sense of how that is going to pan out in real terms and who will be the coalition partners. There is no certainty in as far as that is concerned.”
He noted that civil society wants to have a strong voice in next year’s elections. “From your blue-chip civil society to social movements, they want to make a choice on behalf of society on who should be endorsed or not endorsed politically.”
Mnguni’s Rivonia Circle is among the civil society organisations that legally challenged the bias of the electoral law against independent candidates.
As the elections will take place against a background of high unemployment and crime rates, rocketing food prices and an energy crisis that saw the country hit by more than 300 days of load-shedding in 2023, Mnguni said he expected South Africans to gauge what dividends they have derived from 30 years of democracy.
“It will give us an opportunity for robust and frank conversations, to take stock of three decades of democracy and to ask: ‘What are the inhibiting factors in achieving some of the promises of 1994 in society?’ Because, yes, we do have a problem of corruption and these other things, but the truth is, even if you solved those things, it’s possible that you will still not make enough gains.
“If you talk to guys at local government, they will tell you about structural issues of how the budget is set up, their equity share of the budget and that 11% is not enough. “I think there are fundamental structural questions we can discuss next year — particularly taking advantage of the 30th anniversary of our democracy — on the structure of the economy, the inequality drivers and structural unemployment issues.”