South Africa’s watershed local elections have resulted in upsets for the ANC in key metropoles. But will the new, minority coalition regimes live up to their mandate of providing basic services?
South Africa’s past tells us that, under certain conditions, women mobilise in ways that produce significant political results. But the country’s present shows how easily these gains can evaporate.
Various commentators have wrongly over the last 22 years said that black people voted blindly for ANC governments. There’s no better example why the academy needs a dramatic post-colonial overhaul.
Patronage and clientelism is slipping away from the ANC and accruing to those who pledge their political futures to the Democratic Alliance. It will have to guard against incumbency arrogance.
The ruling ANC has been seriously challenged by the Democratic Alliance, but South African politics is still about white privilege and black exclusion.
South Africans are expressing disillusionment with the African National Congress. But dissatisfaction with the ruling party does not automatically translate into support for other parties.
The ANC’s waning urban vote and growing support rural is not a political trend unique to South Africa. Many of Africa’s liberation-movements-cum-governing-parties now depend on rural support for political longevity.
The opposition Democratic Alliance is hopeful that the African National Congress will fail to win a majority in three metros. This will open the door for it to rule in coalition with smaller parties.
In previous elections speculation in South Africa focused on the likely size of the ruling ANC’s majority. This time the question on people’s minds is: will the ANC win or lose Nelson Mandela Bay?
When celebrating Nelson Mandela Day, it would benefit South Africans to reflect on what the statesman’s legacy means for the nation and how they are living up to his dreams for the country.
Some of the factors behind the riots by ANC supporters in Tshwane are not new. They include gripes within the governing party about its process for choosing mayors and divisions over Jacob Zuma.
The brouhaha over South Africa’s upcoming high-stakes municipal elections hides critically important questions about the continued relevance of local government amid growing public disaffection.
A key question ahead of local government elections in South Africa is whether the African National Congress will retain control of seven of the country’s eight metropolitan municipalities.
Jacob Zuma has backtracked on two major decisions in under two months – first after he fired his finance minister; now he says he’ll pay back public money spent on his lavish Nkandla homestead.
With the election of Mmusi Maimane as leader, the Democratic Alliance, like the ANC, calculated that a black rather than coloured leader is needed for victory at the national level.
On the surface, 2014 appears to represent “business as usual” for the landscape of South Africa’s electoral politics. The African National Congress (ANC) has secured a fifth straight victory in the latest…
Chief Research Specialist in Democracy and Citizenship at the Human Science Research Council and a Research Fellow Centre for African Studies, University of the Free State