ANC is in deep trouble: time to change things up!

The African National Congress (ANC) is in deep trouble, embroiled in multiple crises of its own making, and since its founding in 1912, has never been weaker. The next few weeks will be crucial in determining its ability to cling desperately to power.

Battered by a devastating electoral defeat in 2024, plummeting in popular support from 57% to 40%, the ANC was forced into an uncomfortable alliance to retain power. President Cyril Ramaphosa understood that any coalition either with Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) or former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK) would result in his inevitable ouster from power. His only choice was a coalition with his ideological nemesis, the Democratic Alliance (DA), and a host of minnow parties who barely registered on the electoral scoreboard.

The ANC never truly embraced the idea of a Government of National Unity (GNU), which would force it to co-govern the country. The party was willing to give up certain Cabinet posts in exchange for allowing Ramaphosa and his kleptocratic ANC ministers to continue to both rule and loot the nation.

Over the past few weeks, things have started to unravel.

On 25 June 2025, Ramaphosa announced that he had unilaterally fired DA Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Andrew Whitfield, “because he undertook an international visit without the permission of the president”.

The Ministerial Handbook prescribes that “Deputy ministers may travel on official visits abroad if these are essential … (and) should approach the president in writing to request approval for the intended visit.” Whitfield’s trip to the United States was, however, not an official visit and was for DA, not state, business. Many believed that the president used the excuse to show the DA “who was boss” and punish the party for wrecking his 2025/2026 Budget with its 2% VAT increase.

The DA, having been systematically undermined by the ANC, which has consistently ignored the provisions of the “statement of intent” signed between the parties as a prelude to establishing the GNU, finally decided to take a stand. Announcing its withdrawal from the National Dialogue was irrelevant, of much greater impact was its decision to vote against the budgets of governmental departments, whose ministers had been embroiled in allegations of corruption.

While attending a BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates) summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the president’s woes deepened. Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, police commissioner of KwaZulu-Natal, held a press conference accusing the minister of police, Senzo Mchunu, and senior police officials, the judiciary, intelligence, and metro police of corruption and complicity with murderers and gangsters.

Mchunu, who is the president’s first choice to succeed him, had fired national crime intelligence head, Dumisani Khumalo, whose budget is beyond the scrutiny of ordinary oversight, ostensibly for failing to follow his instruction to disband the political killings task team in KwaZulu-Natal. Political assassinations have become an almost daily occurrence in South Africa. Mkhwanazi indicated that Mchunu had removed 121 open cases of political killings from his department primarily to shut down the investigations and protect a criminal mafia that had infiltrated the state.

Ramaphosa decided to place the minister of police on leave, and set up yet another judicial commission of inquiry which would kick the can indefinitely down the road. Media have incorrectly reported that the commission of inquiry would have a six-month life span, the president said he would require interim reports in month three and month six, but gave no time-limit for a final report. It was a typical Ramaphosa move, avoiding any real decisions.

The country now heads into a crucial few weeks. The ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meets to discuss both the fallout from the Mkhwanazi revelations and the DA’s decision to vote against departmental budgets. There are many in the NEC who want the DA fired from the GNU for showing unexpected insubordination to the ANC. If the DA leaves the GNU, it wants to be fired, exposing that the ANC would rather keep its corrupt Cabinet ministers than compromise with the DA. It’s a strong political message.

The president has also scheduled a Cabinet meeting next week Tuesday, 22 July, hoping to bring the DA back into line and prevent an escalating crisis. The following day, Parliament is due to vote on the budgets of a number of governmental departments. If the ANC fails to bring the DA back from the brink, the GNU could well be over.

Regardless of whether the GNU survives, the ANC has never been more compromised or less appealing to voters. Membership of the one mighty liberation movement has dropped by more than 200 000 people in the past four years alone and today, ANC membership is held by only 0.8% of the population. The behemoth has fallen!

The ANC’s chances of a credible performance during next year’s municipal elections are slipping from its grasp. Local government elections provide alternatives for people to vote, independent candidates, civic organisations, local parties addressing local issues, and alternative national parties offering real choice that affords disgruntled ANC voters real choice.

The same doesn’t necessarily hold true for our next national election in 2029. Disaffected ANC voters have few options for a new political home.

Polling from the Social Research Foundation indicates that very few South Africans are attracted by the radical views of parties such as the EFF. MK, wracked by internal divisions and a strong ethnic Zulu bias, doesn’t appeal to many black voters; and the DA simply doesn’t physically look like its potential electorate. A white led and dominated party in a country still burdened and struggling with a history of racial injustice doesn’t appeal to African black voters. In the 2024 national election, only about 3% of black African voters voted for Helen Zille and John Steenhuisen’s party.

What we desperately need in South Africa is a well-funded, intelligent, centrist, anti-corrupt alternative to the ANC, led by a credible black leader. That’s the only thing that could change the trajectory of our politics and the country.

If we fail to assist in the creation of a credible alternative voice that has the best interests of South Africa at heart, we will continue to muddle down the trajectory of slow decline and economic degradation. Surely, as a nation, we deserve so much better. If we think it’s not our responsibility, if we do nothing to change the political landscape of South Africa, then we will ultimately get the government we deserve.

• Howard Sackstein is the chairperson of the SA Jewish Report, but writes in his personal capacity.