South Africa’s municipal elections on August 3 were among the most important in the brief history of the country’s democracy. Although the ruling African National Congress (ANC) maintained its rural strongholds in the country’s north and east, the party lost majority control of
South Africa’s largest metropolitan areas, from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth. In just two years, the ANC’s share of the vote has fallen from 62 percent to less than 55 percent. In some of South Africa’s cities, those losses are nearly twice as high.The ANC has ruled South Africa since the
end of apartheid in 1994, but it faces growing threats from the left, from the right, and from within the party itself. From the left, the
Economic Freedom Fighters—a self-styled Marxist–Leninist–Fanonist Party—has attracted the support of many young people who are leaving the ANC to seek more radical solutions to the country’s 50 percent youth unemployment rate; since 2013, the party has captured hundreds of posts once held by the ANC.From the right, the Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s largest opposition party, has seized control of important cities such as Cape Town and Tshwane, appealing to middle-class voters fed up with
economic stagnation, official corruption, and poor public services. And within the ANC, disputes over the flow of party patronage have pitted a rural base loyal to South African President Jacob Zuma against the urban party members who seek to oust him. Intraparty strife often exploded into violence in the run-up to the election: in June, five people
died in protests sparked by the announcement of the ANC’s mayoral candidate in Tshwane. In the province of Kwazulu–Natal, 12 ANC candidates were
assassinated this year in the struggle for local posts.
Making matters worse, there is little evidence to suggest that the opposition parties are on the whole less corrupt—or more competent—than the ANC. It is true that the Democratic Alliance has had some technocratic successes in the Western Cape. But that party has never had to manage the Bantustans. Its potential to integrate their local politicians into a cohesive national program is untested; that it could do so while simultaneously stanching out patrimonialism seems far-fetched.
In this sense, the greatest danger of fragmentation is that it will threaten the very cohesion of the South African state. Civil war is certainly not on the horizon, but as the ANC is consumed by infighting, regional party leaders will likely choose to bolster their fiefdoms over complying with orders from the top.
Many will celebrate the ANC’s decline, but fragmentation would mark a turn to a disconcerting second phase in South Africa’s young democracy—and it may lead to a government that is even worse at serving its citizens.
