The ANC Is Collapsing Under the Weight of Its Own Failures

Imagine a mother in Soweto who has gone three days without running water, while the official who promised to fix the pipes drives past her house in a car paid for by public money. Now imagine she has nowhere else to turn, because the party that freed her grandparents from apartheid has held the local council for decades and never once been made to answer for the collapse around her.

Across South Africa this week, millions of people decided they had waited long enough.

With roughly 80 percent of municipal ballots counted, the African National Congress stood at about 31.8 percent. The state-funded Council for Scientific and Industrial Research had projected nearly the same figure. In 2021 the party took 46 percent. At the 2024 national elections it fell just above 40 percent. Now it is sliding toward roughly one vote in three. Final results are due by Sunday, but the direction is already unmistakable. This is the lowest share the ANC has ever recorded. Political analyst Daniel Silke called it the party's worst result in history, and he is right.

Let us be precise about what this means. The ANC did not lose because its voters stayed home. Analysts expected exactly that, a demoralised base sitting out the vote. Instead, the turnout suggests the opposite. ANC voters showed up and chose other parties. That is not apathy. That is accountability arriving at the ballot box, and every democrat on this continent should celebrate it.

Why did they leave? Ask anyone who lives with the consequences. South Africans have been punished for high crime rates that turn ordinary commutes into risk assessments. They have been punished for unemployment that has kept official joblessness near one in three for years, leaving the young with degrees and no work. They have been punished for corruption scandals that never seem to end, and for basic services that fail daily: water that doesn't flow, electricity that switches off, potholes that swallow cars. These are not abstract statistics. They are a generation told that liberation would mean dignity, and handed a municipality that cannot keep the lights on.

The Zondo Commission laid bare how deep the rot goes. Its findings on state capture described a system in which public institutions, state-owned enterprises and municipal contracts were looted by politically connected networks. The commission's report was a national indictment. Too many of the people it named still hold influence, and too little has been done to remove them from positions where they can do it again. When the state becomes a vehicle for enrichment, the first things to die are the things citizens depend on most: clean water, reliable power, honest tenders and a police service that answers the phone.

Here is the uncomfortable truth the ANC's leadership must face. The party did not simply lose popularity. It lost the moral authority that once made it the vehicle of a historic struggle. Many of the people casting their ballots against it are the same people who stood in queues for their first democratic vote in 1994. They did not abandon the idea of liberation. They abandoned a party that forgot what liberation was for.

The results also reveal a shifting landscape. The Democratic Alliance is placed second with about 24 percent, up from nearly 22 percent in 2021. It is on course for an outright majority in Cape Town, a city that has demonstrated what competent municipal management looks like. Johannesburg, Tshwane and other large metros are heading toward hung councils. In eThekwini, the municipality around Durban, former president Jacob Zuma's breakaway party is pursuing a majority, a reminder that the ANC's decline has also been fueled by a splinter movement built on the grievances of its own former leaders.

Some analysts argue that stability in cities like Johannesburg would require the ANC and the DA to govern together, as they already do in national government. We understand the appeal. But coalitions built only to keep power away from opponents produce paralysis, not progress. The ideological gap between the two parties on racial redress is real and must be argued openly. What cannot be negotiated is the basic obligation to deliver water, power, safety and jobs. Any coalition that buries its promises in backroom deals will be punished at the next election, and South Africans will be right to punish it.

What should South Africa's voters demand now? First, that the next administrations publish and enforce a binding municipal service delivery charter with measurable targets for water, electricity, refuse collection and road repair, reported monthly and audited independently. Second, that anti-corruption bodies be fully funded, insulated from political interference, and empowered to prosecute, with no exceptions for senior party figures. Third, that procurement be opened up through open-tender systems and public beneficial ownership registers so that every rand spent by a municipality can be traced to its contractor.

South Africa does not need to invent these solutions. Botswana built one of Africa's most admired economies on diamonds by insisting on transparent governance, a professional civil service and an independent judiciary. Mauritius climbed from sugar dependence to a stable, high-income services economy by protecting property rights and keeping its institutions accountable. Senegal proved in 2024 that a peaceful transfer of power, driven by citizens and an independent electoral commission, can reset a nation's trajectory. Rwanda's economic achievements are real, but its record of crushing dissent and waging war in eastern Congo shows why growth without democracy is never a complete model. The lesson for South Africa is clear. Strong institutions, not party loyalty, are what turn a country's promise into daily reality.

Civil society has a role too. Community organisations, business associations, faith groups and independent media must monitor municipal budgets, publish service failures and hold councillors personally responsible. Private investors, who are watching the water shortages and load-shedding as closely as anyone, should demand transparency as a condition of doing business in local government. The private sector can become the strongest ally of clean governance, because nothing destroys investment faster than a city that cannot guarantee contracts will be honoured.

So here is the question that matters. Will the people who voted for change this week be satisfied with a new name on the same broken system? Or will they organise, monitor, demand and vote again until the water runs and the streets are safe?

To the ANC: you were given one of the most extraordinary mandates in modern African history. You spent it on your own survival. The voters have now told you what they think of that choice. Reform or make way.

To the DA and the other parties rising on this wave: you have been handed a chance to prove that competence can beat patronage. If Cape Town's model works in Johannesburg and Tshwane, you will earn the trust of millions. If it doesn't, you will be next.

To every South African reading this: do not let the victory end at the ballot box. Demand the audited service reports. Attend the council meetings. Ask your councillor where the money went, and refuse to accept silence as an answer.

Africa's future does not belong to the party that fought for our freedom and then forgot it. It belongs to the citizens who remember, and who have the courage to hold power to account.

Based on reporting by FRANCE24