South Africa is in a state of drift: the danger is that the ANC turns the way of Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF

ROGER SOUTHALL|

THE dismal fate of Zimbabwe under the stewardship of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) government has long stood out as a warning to South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC). Yet rarely has South Africa been in more danger of launching into a trajectory of Zimbabwe-like decline than now.

The South Africa media is thoroughly consumed with the political crisis within the ANC: the rampant factionalism, the massive corruption, the ‘capture’ of the state by the practice of ‘cadre deployment’, and the resulting decline in the party’s poll ratings.

There are genuine fears (or hopes) that the party will lose its electoral majority at the next general election in 2024.

From this follows the most fundamental question of all: if the ANC lost its majority at the next election, as Zanu-PF did in the parliamentary and presidential elections of 2008, would it democratically concede power?

Or, alternatively, would it thwart