ANC is in a corner over looming elections

How likely is it that the ruling ANC will fall below 50% in next year’s election? That’s the critical question – not only for the party, but for the rest of South Africa.

In trying to crystal ball-gaze, we need to disregard a lot of the current chatter in the media – both conventional and social. Going on that alone, one would think that the ANC is on the way out.

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Even its secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, has conceded that the organisation might struggle to gain an outright majority. All of the ANC’s political enemies – from both sides of the political spectrum – are queueing up to feast on its corpse but, to paraphrase Mark Twain, perhaps those suggestions of its impending death have been somewhat exaggerated.

The ANC, no matter its many, many faults, is an institution in this country. It is also perceived by many as the entity which controls the critically important purse strings of the social grant system – and that is a powerful motivation for people to continue to do what they believe puts food on their table.

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There will also, no doubt, be many campaigns between now and voting day to show that the ANC can run the country – and the improvement in load shedding is just one manifestation of how the ruling party has the power to manipulate a national crisis in its favour.

Perhaps the biggest motivator for the party and its campaigners is that, if it gets less than 50% of the votes, it will have to get into bed with either the Democratic Alliance (DA) or the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). That will be difficult for the ANC to swallow.

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The EFF is seen as too radical and the DA too Western liberal. And those parties’ price for a partnership might not be one the ANC is willing to pay