the ANC, which garnered 40.

2% of the votes; the Democratic Alliance (DA), with 21.

8%; the new MK party of former President Jacob Zuma, with 14.

6%; and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) with 9.

5%.

With each party advocating distinctly different policies and ideologies, the composition of the new government will directly shape South Africa’s trajectory.

For a government of national unity to be stable and deliver for citizens, it will require compromises and inter-party confidence-building along the lines of President Nelson Mandela’s Government of National Unity, which comprised all of the ANC’s political rivals, including the National Party, following the first competitive multi-party elections in 1994.

Not to be overlooked in the scrutiny of the outcome was the even-handed and transparent process in which the hard-fought election was conducted.

All parties were able to campaign freely, get their messages out to voters in person and via multiple media platforms, and maintain ongoing access to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).

Save for some technical glitches, the IEC was able to provide a transparent and fair election process.

Just under 60% of eligible voters cast their ballots, with youth voters particularly engaged.

According to the IEC, voters between the ages of 20 and 29 showed a commitment to having their voices heard at the ballot box.

The “big four” parties, with the notable exception of the MK party, have publicly accepted the electoral results.

Setting the tone, President Ramaphosa stated: “Our people have spoken, whether we like it or not, they have spoken.

As the leaders of political parties, as all those who occupy positions of responsibility in society, we have heard the voices of our people, and we must respect their wishes.

”Regardless of the ultimate configuration of the new government, South Africa and the ANC have provided an exemplary display of how a competitive electoral process can be conducted for the continent—and the world.

While historic, the results of South Africa’s 2024 election follow a pattern from previous polls.

The ANC’s share of the vote had dropped steadily over the five previous elections, from a high of 70% in 2004 to 57.

5% in 2019.

In the 2021 local government polls, the ANC earned 45.

6% of the vote, forcing it into coalition arrangements for the first time.

Disillusionment with the ANC has been growing for decades due to perceptions of endemic corruption and patronage, diversion of state resources, and certain anti-democratic tendencies stemming in part from fierce factional battles.

South Africa also has among the world’s highest reported unemployment rates, which in 2023 ballooned to over 50%, contributing to its alarming crime rates.

South Africa has also been plagued by issues at the power utility Eskom and outright sabotage by senior officials for factional political purposes.

The woes facing Africa’s oldest liberation movement, which celebrated its 113th anniversary in 2024, are detailed in the 76,206-page Final Report of the Independent Judicial Inquiry into State Capture, which conducted 430 public hearings and reviewed 161,070 transcripts of testimony over two years.

Its findings are grim: top party and government leaders—including former President Zuma—were found to have pilfered state institutions for financial gain.

It cost South Africa an estimated $50 billion between 2009 and 2018.

The ANC’s descent into such serious malpractice was too much to bear for many, including its top stalwarts.

In August 2023, an exasperated Thabo Mbeki, Mandela’s immediate successor as president, asked, “What has become of the ANC?”The ANC’s poor electoral performance can also be attributed to debilitating internal splits that chipped away at its base over time.

The first crack occurred in 2008, when senior Mbeki administration officials resigned to protest his removal as president after Zuma loyalists took control of the ANC.

The new party created by Mbeki officials, the Congress of the People (COPE), which took its name from the 1959 Congress of the People that produced the renowned Freedom Charter, reduced the ANC vote to 65.

9% in the 2009 polls.

Expelled ANC Youth League leaders then formed the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in 2013 to implement the Freedom Charter, which they felt the ANC had abandoned.

This further sank the ANC vote to 62% in 2014 and 57% in 2019.

That year, the EFF’s share of the vote jumped to 10%.

This support also partly came from ANC followers who wanted to punish the ruling party for cutting Zuma’s term short and replacing him with Cyril Ramaphosa.

The ANC’s worst internal split occurred in July 2021 after Zuma partisans instigated riots following Zuma’s imprisonment for contempt of court.

The ANC splinter faction that began to take root from those riots, which left over 300 dead and caused untold damage to public property, coalesced into the MK party.

Born from the intense intra-ANC rivalry between Zuma loyalists and Ramaphosa supporters, the MK party has been distinctive for challenging the legitimacy of state institutions and South Africa’s foundational democratic principles.

The MK party took its name from Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the ANC’s former military wing.

Its rise has been unlike anything South Africa has previously seen.

To appreciate the effect of this splintering, the combined vote totals for the ANC, EFF, and MK party amounted to 63% of the vote.

The ruling party would have finished at 55% had its votes not migrated to the MK party.

The determination by those outside the ANC to dislodge it from its majority should also not be underestimated.

A record number of independent candidates contested the election, compared to just 16 in 1994.

The number of independent candidates on national and provincial ballots reached a historic high of 200, forcing the IEC to adapt, which contributed to delays in tallying.

The DA assembled 11 parties to contest as a bloc, which collectively won 119 of the 400 seats in Parliament.

All told, the effort to break the ANC’s majority was unprecedented.

Other entrenched ruling parties around Africa are closely watching these developments.

Many have also been in power since winning independence, and like the ANC, they have been plagued by systematic corruption, impunity, entitlement to rule, and insensitivity to citizens’ concerns.

It is unclear what lessons they will draw from South Africa.

Some are saying the ANC should have had a “Plan B” when it sensed defeat, meaning rigging, switching off the internet, ring-fencing the electoral commission, and pulling all the stops to dislocate, intimidate, and neutralize rivals.

That is how various ruling parties have kept themselves in power.

That the ANC did not choose this route is a testament to its commitment to democratic processes and the resiliency of South Africa’s oversight institutions.

The ANC has cut an image of a humbled party aware of its errors and willing to engage in what many are calling “talks-about-talks,” a term that was used to describe the pre-negotiation engagements between the ANC and the apartheid regime.

The challenges of building a government of national unity are formidable, however.

While EFF leader Julius Malema has singled out the ANC as a potential coalition partner, he views the EFF and MK party as “relatives with no policy or ideological differences.

” In addition to being products of the ANC’s factional battles, they represent constituencies that feel aggrieved with the party’s failure to implement the resolutions of its 52nd National Conference in 2007, which includes land expropriation.

Their respective policy programs are built in large part on those resolutions.

Between the MK party and the EFF, the ANC has a sharper conflict with the former given the long-running tensions between pro-Zuma and pro-Ramaphosa loyalists.

The DA says it wants to prevent an ANC/EFF/MK alliance that its leader, John Steenhuisen, described as a “coalition of chaos.

” Meanwhile, ANC senior leader Lindiwe Sisulu, daughter of the highly revered Walter Sisulu, has called for a “grand coalition” among the ANC/MK/EFF, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), and Patriotic Alliance (PA) to counter an ANC/DA coalition.

Sisulu was addressing the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the ANC’s single largest organized voting bloc, which has been in a Tripartite Governing Alliance with the ANC since 1994.

COSATU has warned that the DA’s opposition to major ANC policies like the introduction of a minimum wage and state-funded health insurance coverage for all South Africans would roll back workers’ rights.

The National Black Business Caucus, which represents black-owned businesses, has rallied around this position.

Meanwhile, the MK party has rejected the results.

“Nobody must declare results,” Zuma warned a day before results were announced.

He reiterated his stance when the IEC announced the results: “They [IEC] don’t know what MK is made of.

” Former president Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, who does not have a