The ANC retains its determination to rule yet lacks the capacity to do so effectively. The only way out of the dilemma is its defeat in an election.
South African and African National Congress party’s President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks during the ANC’s 110th anniversary celebrations.
Photo by Phill Magakoe /AFP via Getty Images
South Africans are led by a dithering president at the helm of an inept political party which has already passed its sell by date.
Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, former South African President FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela after signing a peace pledge ahead of the first democratic elections in 1994.
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This history covers twelve decades, from the surrender of Boer guerrillas in the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1902 to the July 2021 looting spree and violence.
Supporters of main opposition Democratic Alliance wave the national flag ahead of the 2021 local elections.
EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook
The 2021 local government elections signals widespread disillusionment with representative democracy that only a sea change in service delivery can fix.
Looters make off with supplies during the unrest that hit parts of two provinces in South Africa in July.
EFE-EPA/Stringer
The democratic transition in 1994 was the result of an ‘elite pact’ that changed the country’s politics, but did little to undermine the foundations of white economic power.
Protesters gather in the middle of the road during a demonstration in Johannesburg.
Photo by Thabo Jaiyesimi/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
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.
South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa faces a tricky time giving evidence about corruption. He wears two presidential hats: as head of the African National Congress, and the government.
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Ramaphosa will be eager to communicate his position that no one should be above scrutiny and that all parts of society,should be examined by the Commission.
Tony Leon celebrates.
at the Democratic Alliance’s final election rally held in Johannesburg, in April 2004.
EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook
Leon mulls over the Democratic Alliance’s biggest challenge: ‘how to maintain its majority support among minorities, and increase its meagre voter share among the black majority’.
South Africa has seen a sharp rise in protests due to incompetence within its civil service.
EFE-EPA/Nic Bothma
The election of Port Elizabeth’s first black mayor in 1995 signalled that the democratic change that had started in 1994 was irreversible. But problems lay ahead.
African National Congress top six leaders. The governing party’s wishes are sometimes out of kilter with the dictates of statecraft.
AFP-GettyImages/Mujahid Safodien
President Ramaphosa’s state of the nation speech showed his preference for less contentious matters that attract praise, rather than catalytic decisions.
Anti-corruption protesters march on Parliament in Cape Town in 2017.
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In South Africa, state corruption has taken hold with utter disregard for ethics and democratic norms in a cynical exploitation of the post-apartheid transformation agenda.
The town of Makhanda, formerly Grahamstown, and surrounds have suffered serious neglect by the local municipality.
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Democracy in South Africa is meaningless if it doesn’t improve the lives of the people. To do this, the governing ANC must be led by conscientious, competent and interested leaders.
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