South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party finds itself in uncharted political territory as it approaches national and provincial elections on May 29. Accustomed for so long to operating in a comfort zone of one-party dominance, the ANC now confronts a more challenging electoral landscape.
Among the many problems the ANC currently faces, one stands out: the emergence of the newly created Umkhonto we Sizwe, or MK, Party. In the surprise of the campaign, the MK Party will contest the elections with former President Jacob Zuma at its head. Indeed, the party is essentially a vehicle for Zuma’s ambitions. And in an election where the ANC has limited scope to lose support if it is to continue to govern singlehandedly, it threatens the ruling party’s prospects, both nationally and in particular provinces.
Surveys of voting intentions show a steep fall in support for the ANC after a long period of poor governance and endemic corruption. The economy is struggling, with the International Monetary Fund forecasting growth of just 0.9 percent in 2024. That’s not enough to improve the country’s catastrophic level of unemployment, which now stands at 32.1 percent. Equally, the South African state under ANC stewardship is underperforming across its entire range of responsibilities, as evidenced by frequent electricity power cuts, or “load shedding,” growing problems with water delivery and the dysfunctional condition of the country’s various state-owned enterprises.
Added to this, the ANC has acquired an almost limitless capacity for scandal and venality over the past 15 years. The cumulative and combined effect of all these factors has been to render the party vulnerable, with the polls pointing toward a sobering election outcome after three decades in which the ANC’s anti-apartheid legacy allowed it to defy the laws of political gravity.
The ANC secured 57.5 percent of the vote in 2019 and needs a minimum of 50 percent to continue governing without requiring the support of another party or parties in a coalition arrangement. Recent surveys suggest that achieving this will be extremely difficult. In March, a Brenthurst Foundation poll placed support for the ANC at just 39 percent nationally. In the same month, a poll for the news channel eNCA showed the ANC at 41 percent. And in early April, a Social Research Foundation survey put it at just 37 percent. These are historic polling lows for the party in the democratic era.
Of course, polls provide only snapshots of current opinion rather than rock solid predictions of an election outcome. And the protracted nature of South African election campaigns gives the ANC time to build support once its electoral juggernaut, the most well-resourced and extensive in the country, gathers momentum. As a result, the ANC itself claims to be confident it will equal the 57 percent share it secured in 2019. But that seems like wishful thinking, as the party’s electoral decline now seems irreversible. Even if it manages to secure 50 percent, a new national and provincial reality looms on the horizon: one of coalitions, trade-offs, partial victories and even defeats. Adapting to this new, more pluralistic and fragmented order will be challenging for all political formations, but it will be a particularly chastening experience for a once-dominant party.
Complicating matters even further will be Zuma’s re-emergence at the head of the newly formed MK Party, after years of legal difficulties stemming from corruption charges dating back to his tenure as president. Zuma has now turned on the ANC, which enabled his rise and protected him in parliament throughout his scandal-ridden presidency, and despite the fact that the party’s current leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa, reduced Zuma’s 15-month prison sentence—imposed in 2021 for contempt of court—allowing him to stand in this year’s election. The ANC’s indulgence of Zuma has now backfired, as he has clearly set out on a revenge mission to inflict as much damage as possible on Ramaphosa and, through him, the ANC.
This year’s election was already shaping up to be the ANC’s most troubled poll of the post-apartheid era. It has now become even more fraught with Zuma’s return at the head of the MK Party.
The Ramaphosa-Zuma relationship has become toxic for various reasons: Zuma’s bitterness that Ramaphosa secured the ANC leadership in December 2017 by narrowly defeating Zuma’s ally and former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma; Ramaphosa’s role in removing Zuma as president in February 2018; Ramaphosa’s dismissal of Zuma’s period in office as “nine wasted years”; and Ramaphosa’s denunciation of the corruption and state capture during Zuma’s tenure, as laid bare by the Zondo Commission in a series of comprehensive reports released between 2018 and 2022. Zuma’s supporters respond to the latter charge by pointing out that Ramaphosa, as Zuma’s deputy president between 2014 and 2018, was complicit in those failings.
The emergence of the MK Party is now being viewed by some analysts as a potential election gamechanger. When the party was launched in December, the ANC clearly thought it would be only a minor irritant, but that complacent assumption has been upended by recent polling. Instead, the figures show the MK Party eating into ANC support in KwaZulu-Natal—Zuma’s home province, where he retains a substantial following—and it is likely to deprive the ANC of a majority there. The SRF poll in February put support for MK at 24 percent in the province, and the Brenthurst Foundation poll in March put it at 25 percent. Given that KwaZulu-Natal accounts for 20 percent of all registered voters, this will depress the ANC vote nationally and may place a 50 percent finish out of reach. Both the Brenthurst poll in March and the SRF poll in April put support for The MK Party at 13 percent nationally, with disaffected ANC voters making up its core constituency.
If these figures are translated into actual votes on May 29, it will be a remarkable achievement for a party only formed five months ago. And the ANC’s actions in recent weeks show it has been seriously unnerved by the MK Party. These include unsuccessful court attempts to challenge the MK Party’s election registration and its appropriation of ANC symbols and names, not least Umkhonto we Sizwe itself, the name of the ANC’s former armed wing. Just this week, the police opened an investigation into charge the party forged some of the 15,000 signatures needed to register for the elections.
The ANC knows it cannot allow Zuma to construct a narrative portraying the MK Party as the “true ANC” resisting the supposed betrayals of Ramaphosa and his leadership team. The ANC must also be disappointed that the Electoral Court overturned the Independent Electoral Commission’s earlier ruling that Zuma could not head the MK Party’s ticket due to his previous prison sentence, as it knows that an MK led by Zuma will be a more formidable proposition than one without him.
The MK Party has some obvious weaknesses, but most will only become evident over time, if it remains an important presence on the political scene. Its immediate challenge is to demonstrate that it has the resources and ground level structures to get its potential voters to the polls on May 29, which is not guaranteed. Over the longer term it will have to address a number of issues if it is to move from an insurgent party to a serious contender, including whether it can be more than just a vehicle for the 82-year-old Zuma and whether it has ambitions beyond KwaZulu-Natal.
But above all, it remains to be seen whether the party will develop a coherent policy platform. At present it is committed to a populist and authoritarian program with, on one hand, a commitment to an ill-defined “radical economic transformation,” and on the other, a social conservatism rooted in patriarchy, ethnic Zulu nationalism, homophobia and a punitive approach to pregnant teenagers. It is also committed to strengthening the powers of traditional leaders over national and provincial government, while also prioritizing African legal traditions over what it refers to as “Roman-Dutch law.”
Combined, this places it in opposition to liberal modernity and the democratic values underpinning the 1996 constitution. The feasibility of that agenda will come under closer scrutiny in the future, but for now the MK Party seems content to serve as a refuge for ANC voters disillusioned by the Ramaphosa administration’s inability to deliver services or improve their economic prospects. Most importantly, if it can secure between 5 and 10 percent of the national vote, it will deny the ANC a national majority, help deprive it of majorities in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, and reduce its vote share in Mpumalanga. The hope is that ANC setbacks on that scale will topple Ramaphosa as the party leader and state president. Indeed, his removal is likely to be an MK condition for any post-election coalition arrangement with the ANC.
This year’s election was already shaping up to be the ANC’s most troubled poll of the post-apartheid era. It has now become even more fraught with the arrival of the Zuma “wrecking ball.”
James Hamill has been a lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester since 1991. He has a long-standing research interest in South African politics, particularly in the country’s post-apartheid development, and is a frequent visitor to the country. He has published articles on South Africa in International Relations, Diplomacy & Statecraft, The World Today, Politikon: The South African Journal of Political Studies and The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.