Will the GNU stand the test?

16 December 2024 – This week, we ask: Will the GNU stand the test? Will MK build on its successes and will the EFF find a way to halt its decline?

Welcome to the weekly Risk Alert from the Centre for Risk Analysis — 16 December 2024

Will the GNU stand the test?

In 2025, the differences between the pro-Government of National Unity (GNU) and anti-GNU factions in the African National Congress (ANC) will be thrown into sharp relief. Despite tensions within the ANC and disagreements between it and some of its GNU partners, our call is that the current version of the GNU will hold until the country’s next Local Government Elections (LGE), likely to take place near the end of 2026.

Local government service delivery issues will be pressed more to the fore, with ongoing water problems in Gauteng continuing through 2025. ANC leaders who are opposed to their party’s approach to the GNU, such as Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi, run the risk of losing sight of the bread-and-butter issues that voters expect their provincial and municipal governments to solve. This could cost them dearly in 2026.

Although the GNU will continue to be tested next year — especially over ANC attempts to ram through damaging legislation affecting education, health and property rights — political noise is not an indicator that the fundamental coalition will not hold. The challenge of delivering higher economic growth rates while navigating core ideological and policy differences will keep GNU leaders busy. With a very limited runway before the 2026 elections, they need to show that the sugar high that animated markets following the formation of the GNU was more than just a transient phenomenon, but rather an early taste of substantive policy and legislative reforms yet to come.

So far, however, such reforms have been conspicuous by their absence. While GNU leaders have paid lip service to the need for economic growth, they have delivered little of substance. After a promising start, work to fix the problems at Transnet and Eskom — which impose tight constraints on the economy — seems to have run out of steam. Unless the GNU pursues growth far more aggressively, its prospects will progressively dim over the coming years.

MK’s opportunity

The uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) marks the one-year anniversary of its founding today, 16 December 2024. While it had only been in existence for a few months before the May 2024 general election, it obtained an impressive 14.6% share of the vote nationally. In KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) it cannibalised ANC support, attaining 45.4% and securing 37 of 80 seats in the provincial legislature. The KZN ANC was relegated from first to third place in the province, with its vote share dropping from 54% in 2019 to 17% in 2024.

Headed by former President Jacob Zuma, the MKP has attracted controversial political talent, including impeached former judge John Hlophe, impeached former Public Prosecutor Busisiwe Mkhwebane, former EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu, former EFF chairperson Dali Mpofu, prominent Gupta supporter Andile Mngxitama, and various persons prominently implicated in state capture, including Siyabonga Gama, Mzwanele Manyi, Brian Molefe, Lucky Montana, and the short-lived former finance minister, Des van Rooyen.

The MK Party aims to solidify its support and consolidate the ethnic nationalist, left-populist space in South African politics to provide a path to patronage and rent extraction. But serious internal risks lie ahead. Mr Zuma continues to make all the important decisions in the party. An elective conference is firmly off the table. Should Mr Zuma suffer from ill health or pass away, a vicious power struggle will ensue. In 2025, the MK Party will therefore be looking for ways to build structures and values that will help it endure in the absence of its current leader, as well as ways to broaden its appeal beyond its Zulu base. It will also be preparing to hand the ANC some painful defeats in the 2026 local government elections, especially among rural voters.

The EFF stumbles

In the aftermath of the 2024 election, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have  staggered along after the party's vote share dropped from 10.8% in 2019 to 9.5%, relegating it from third-largest to fourth largest after the MK Party, and after losing a significant share of its top leadership echelon to the MK Party, including Messrs Manyi, Mpofu, Shivambu and Ms Mkhwebane. The party appears significantly weakened and this poses a rebuilding challenge to Julius Malema and the rest of the party leadership.

From 12 to 15 December the EFF held its third National People’s Assembly, at which Mr Malema was elected unopposed for a third term as party president. He will now have to reassert his authority over the party, strengthen his political credibility, rekindle belief in the future success of the party, all the while fending off the threat of further defections or disloyalty in his ranks. He will also have to manage his party’s relationship with the MK Party, with which it is cooperating in a “progressive caucus” in the National Assembly.

In our estimation, 2025 will not be a year of growth for the EFF. The shine of novelty has worn off and the MK Party is the most exciting new venture. The EFF could therefore choose to explore options outside regular political campaigning. For example, a diminished EFF could make a pitch to the ANC, presenting itself as a more attractive and less threatening cooperation partner than either the Democratic Alliance or the MK Party. The EFF could also bide its time in the hopes that the MK Party will succumb to its internal instability, thus creating a gap for the EFF to reassume its position as the leading force of the revolutionary left.

Political change in southern Africa

Globally, 2024 was a bumper year for elections. In Africa alone, 22 countries went to the polls this year, according to the Brookings Institute. The results of the elections show a mixed picture regarding the health of democracy on the continent.

Democracy showed itself to be resilient in Botswana, Ghana, Mauritius, Senegal, and South Africa. In these countries, incumbents were either voted out or forced into coalitions. Elections were run fairly efficiently, and voters were able to cast their ballots without the threat of violence or other intimidation, with results reflecting the overall will of the people.

It was a different story in other countries. For example, voting in Mozambique was followed by widespread unrest, amidst claims of rigging and electoral fraud. At the time of writing, about 100 people had been killed, with protests costing South Africa about R10 million a day in lost trade as border posts and the Maputo port are intermittently closed.

Elsewhere in southern Africa, the governing SWAPO Party held onto its majority in Namibia in November, also amid claims of rigging and manipulation of the electoral process. While the risk of violence in that country remains low for now, with opposition parties saying they will take the battle to court, electoral uncertainty does heighten political risk in that country, which stands on the cusp of benefitting from a gas and oil bonanza. Less credibly, in Tanzania the governing Chama Cha Mapinduzi party claimed to have won 98% of the vote in local elections held in November, while Rwanda’s long-governing strongman, Paul Kagame, was reported to have secured 99.2% of the votes cast in polls in July.

On balance, democracy has fared unevenly in Africa in 2024, with elections showing that it remains fragile in many parts of the continent. It is more resilient in countries with strong institutions and with a tradition of liberal democracy. However, the case of Namibia shows that institutions and democratic traditions are not enough, and that strong foundations can crumble. It is vital that governing parties be held to account and be made to play by the rules of the democratic game. For South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe will remain a destabilising regional influence in 2025, negatively impacting trade and investment.