South Africa is entering an age of uncertainty: analyst

DEMOCRATIC South Africa’s political path has been relatively easy to navigate, up until November 2021, says BNP Paribas analyst Nic Borain. However, the significant upset for the ANC in the 2021 local elections has brought even the surest of bets into question.

According to Borain, the governing African National Congress has always been the dominant political party, with an outright majority that makes it easy to predict where policy direction would go long before it even makes its way to parliament to be voted on.

“The important debates about policy were won or lost in party and alliance structures well before those decisions were voted on in parliament,” Borain said.

While the ANC’s internal debates have been less predictable, Boarian said that 20 years of analysis has laid out a broad modus operandi for the party.

“The ANC tends to ‘talk left but walk right’. The party would leak, suggest