Opinion: Ramaphosa will go to bed an uncertain man

The election results paint a more complex picture than the ANC simply losing votes.

Opposition polls preceding the elections predicted that the ANC would win with a relative majority and that they would need smaller parties to get an outright majority to appoint a president in the National Assembly.

The political landscape became more complicated as the elections approached, however. The MK and its support base in KZN, Mpumalanga and Gauteng have caused the ANC’s support to dwindle to 40%, which makes it difficult for them to form a coalition to appoint a president.

They can no longer form coalitions with smaller parties to have a majority and it necessitates them getting a bigger coalition partner like the MK, EFF or the DA, which are ideologically removed from the ANC. Additionally, poor relations with the EFF will not make a partnership between the two parties easy.

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It thus begs the question: How will the ANC manage insider politics to establish a relationship with parties outside the liberation movement to eventually form a government?

Within the next 24 to 48 hours, the ANC National Executive Committee will get together and in this group, about 60% have already lost their seats due to the ANC’s poor election performance. Between 60 to 70 ANC members of the National Assembly will also not return to Parliament.

It makes sense that they would want to blame someone. Analysts predict and fear that they will blame the president. It is the second election under Ramaphosa’s leadership where the DA has succeeded in confirming its support base; the EFF has shown relative growth, and a completely new party, the MK, was formed, uprooting the ANC’s grip in the provincial and national legislatures.

These are the people the ANC will now have to make some or other agreement with. No analyst can say with surety or go into detail about what the ANC will do, and what choices would be the best for South African politics.

The DA is prepared to go into an agreement with the ANC, but their ideologies are very far removed. The MK will not deal with the ANC while Ramaphosa is there. The EFF is more tolerant towards Ramaphosa, but their policy suggestions can release central powers within the ANC that might destroy them to such an extent that they will not even reach 40% in the next election.

We are in a difficult situation. The person or analyst who dares to make a prediction now will most probably be wrong.

The tectonic plates of political power in South Africa started moving during the past few years, and during the past three months, we have read it in opinion polls and we have now witnessed its effects.

This is what we call ‘the politics of uncertainty’. If we are uncertain, imagine how uncertain the president will be when he goes to sleep tonight, not knowing if he is going to remain president two weeks after the election results have been declared.

It says a lot about South Africans and the way we think about democracy – we voted out a liberation movement.