The decline in support for the ANC suggests that coalition governments will become increasingly common in the country, affecting its appointment policy.
Despite its vagueness, the RET has become central to the contemporary ANC. It is destined to remain a powerful bloc within the party, and a constant constraint on Ramaphosa leadership.
Parliament’s failure to live up to its constitutional mandate was noted by the State Capture Commission as having enabled former president Zuma’s regime to corrupt state behaviour with ease.
The deliberations were characterised by disingenuous, counter-factual policy pronouncements, and de facto denials of the ANC’s culpability in causing many of the current problems facing the country.
The country is still a very different political space. It’s a noisy democracy with a free media, lots of dissenting voices, and insulting the government doesn’t carry any overt sanction.
The ANC has been using multiple tactics to fend off the looming calamity of not having Ramaphosa as its president, and that of the country, in the clear absence of a credible candidate to replace him.
The violence wreaked its damage because South Africa’s journey to democracy remains incomplete. It sends a sharp message that the country must look its past far more squarely in the eye.
South Africa can’t possibly remain the same country in the aftermath of this mayhem. There are just too many storms ahead to simply continue unchanged.
The problem in municipalities is not that the wrong people are being chosen. It is that the wrong people are doing the choosing – not only of candidates but of what they do if elected.
Ramaphosa’s rise to power in 2018 offered South Africans hope that he would end corruption. Indeed, he made promises to do so. But he has met with resistance, especially within the ANC.