The ANC Has Been Rejected by South Africa for Its Corruption

Thirty-one percent. That is what the African National Congress won in South Africa's latest local elections, the lowest share in the party's history at this level. The party that marched Nelson Mandela out of prison and into the presidency, that promised the children of apartheid a future, now commands less than a third of the vote in the country it liberated. Its own Secretary-General called the result "catastrophic." He was not exaggerating.

So let us ask the question the ANC does not want asked. How does a liberation movement lose the trust of its people? The answer is not complicated. It is written in potholes, in dark streets, in water taps that run dry and refuse that goes uncollected. It is written in the bank accounts of officials who learned that public office is a private ATM. We have watched this happen across our continent for decades, and South Africa, the country that once stood as proof that Africa could build a constitutional democracy from the ruins of racial oppression, is now showing us how a dominant party rots from the inside.

Consider the numbers, because they tell a story of steady, avoidable decline. In 1994, the ANC won 63 percent of the vote in the first democratic elections. In 2006, its local vote share stood at 66 percent. By 2021 it had slipped to 46 percent. Now it sits at 31 percent, while the Democratic Alliance holds roughly 25 percent. In 2024, the ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in a national election, which forced it into a coalition government with the DA and others. That was not a voter revolt against one bad mayor. It was a sustained verdict, delivered over three decades, and every election the party ignored it.

The ANC lost Johannesburg, the economic heart of the country, along with Pretoria and the large Ekurhuleni municipality east of the city. The DA retained Cape Town. Across the eight biggest metros and the 44 district and 205 local municipalities that were contested, citizens voted against a party that could not keep the lights on. Analysts across the political spectrum point to the same failures: irregular water supply, electricity cuts, broken street lights, dilapidated roads, uncollected refuse. These are not abstractions. They are the daily humiliations of a working mother who must boil water for her children, of a small business owner who loses stock when the power goes out, of a young person who sees the bus route that might have carried them to work fall apart one pothole at a time.

Now look at the man at the top. President Cyril Ramaphosa, who also leads the ANC, was punished for the Farmgate scandal, in which burglars broke into his private game farm in 2020 and made off with $580,000 hidden in the furniture. The allegation that has dogged him since is not merely that money was stolen. It is that he covered up the theft and kept the investigation into the source of that cash out of public view. Whatever the final judicial verdict, the public heard a president who appeared to protect himself first. When the head of the house is accused of hiding the money, the household should not be surprised when the neighbours stop trusting the family.

Let us be precise about who bears responsibility, because vagueness is cowardice. The ANC governed the municipalities that failed to maintain their water infrastructure. ANC councils oversaw the tenders that were awarded to connected insiders and the maintenance budgets that evaporated. ANC leaders in national government presided over state enterprises that bled billions. Those failures did not happen because South Africans lack talent or because apartheid's legacy has a magic veto over competence. They happened because a governing party allowed patronage to outrank performance and loyalty to outrank law.

We must also reject the lazy argument that democracy itself is to blame for this moment. Coalition politics can be messy, and the analysts are right that stalemates and fragile alliances carry real risk. But a government that cannot get water to a township is not stable. It is merely unaccountable. Stability without performance is just a slow-motion failure that the powerful have learned to manage. South Africa's voters have decided they would rather have uncertainty with accountability than comfort with decay. That is a healthy instinct, and it is the one we should be defending.

The lesson reaches far beyond Pretoria. Across Africa, liberation parties built on real historical sacrifice have treated that sacrifice as a permanent license to govern badly. Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF, Mozambique's FRELIMO, and others have leaned on the memory of the struggle while their citizens queued for fuel and medicine. The liberation story is not a substitute for a functioning state. When it becomes one, the people eventually stop buying it. South Africa is simply arriving at that reckoning in a democratic, open way, through the ballot box, and that is precisely why it matters.

So what must be done? The answer is not a new slogan. It is a set of hard, concrete reforms that any serious government would implement. First, every coalition agreement signed in the coming weeks should include published, measurable service delivery targets for water, power, roads, and refuse collection, with quarterly public reporting. Second, municipal procurement must move to open, digital tendering with real-time publication of contracts, so that no councillor can award a road to a cousin in the dark. Third, the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption and the Auditor-General must receive full independence and funding, and their findings must trigger prosecution, not press releases. Fourth, the Constitution's promise of an independent judiciary must be defended from any political interference, because justice that answers to the ruling party is not justice at all.

South Africa does not have to look far for models. Botswana built one of Africa's most prosperous economies on transparent diamond governance, strong institutions, and a culture that treats public money as sacred. Mauritius has maintained competitive elections, an independent judiciary, and a business environment that attracts investment on merit. Senegal showed in 2024 that an electorate could peacefully remove a ruling establishment when it stopped delivering, and that peaceful transfers of power strengthen a nation rather than weaken it. These are not perfect countries. But they prove that African governments can choose rule of law, property rights, open markets, and accountable institutions over patronage, and that citizens who demand those things can win.

Civil society has a critical role to play as well. Independent media, citizen scorecards that track municipal performance, and local business associations that refuse to pay bribes can turn a protest vote into a permanent system of accountability. The private sector should stop treating corruption as the cost of doing business and start demanding the clean institutions that allow investment to flourish.

And now to you, the reader. If you are South African, you have just watched your country deliver a verdict that many thought impossible. Do not let the politicians tell you that the verdict was a mistake, or that you must wait another five years for them to remember your name. Demand that your councillor publish the maintenance budget. Demand that your municipality explain every contract over a million rand. Demand that coalition partners sign binding service commitments in public view. If you are elsewhere in Africa, watch closely, because the same rot is in your capital too, and the same remedy is available to you.

The ANC has been told, in the clearest language a democracy can use, that it is no longer trusted to govern alone. The question now is whether its leaders will listen, or whether they will spend the next decade blaming everyone except themselves. Africa has paid too high a price for liberation movements that forgot why they were liberators. South Africans have shown the continent what happens when citizens stop being patient. Let us make sure that the next government earns its place through performance, and that every leader who forgets it is reminded, at the ballot box, who is really in charge.

Based on reporting by ALJAZEERA