Coalition negotiations will clear the succession battle fog.

By June 16, South Africa would have inaugurated the seventh administration, appointed a new President, and appointed the nine provincial Premiers. The executive authority of the Republic and all sub-national governments will be constituted. A 50% majority vote would have decided on the above process. The democratic order will once again continue along the arc of stability, a peaceful transition from one administration to another, with the coalition negotiations playing a crucial role in maintaining this stability. 

 

The outcome of the coalition negotiations, as indicated by consistent polls showing a performance of less than 50% by all parties, could lead to in-party succession battles. The prize of politics, for several parties, will shift from government control to presiding over RSA's most influential political parties, potentially sparking succession battles in most parties and their subnational structures. 

 

The election results will start one of the fiercest leadership succession battles in the governing party. The current President, Cyril Ramaphosa, is in his terminal second-year term as ANC President and potentially last "full term" as President of the country. His significance will be grossly compromised as the battle truly commences to influence how the next nexus of political power ultimately looks like. In the ANC, it is becoming convention that a President whose party term is ending and who is a State President will, in all probabilities, not finish the term. This makes the ANC Elective National Conference the most crucial primary in determining who the next country’s President will be. As a party, the ANC becomes the conduit or means to becoming a state president. Arguably, and all other things being constant, a rarity in politics, Deputy President Paul Mashatile is in pole position to succeed Ramaphosa. 

 

Regarding how society will influence who becomes the State President in 2029, our vulnerability lies in the ANC's 2027 National Conference, whose preparations will start with how a post-2024 less than 50% by all parties coalition government negotiations are concluded. The ultimate ideological battles within the governing ANC will be won or lost through the content, form, and character of the coalition arrangements that will follow the announcement of the May 29 results. The ANC mandate will somewhat answer an unsaid referendum question about which order will define South Africa in terms of geopolitical and economic doctrine. Whilst it might remain a church to accommodate the ideological illiteracy of the majority of its voting supporters, its core thinkers and activists will know if the church is Catholic or not.

 

Because the future derives its functionality from its perceived changeability, as a society, we are often unable to think about it without imagining ourselves altering it. This condition is acute in determining doctrines suitable for us as a people. Although a feature of post-liberation states is that the frontiers of society's human rights knowledge will be extended, our propensity to vote against liberators takes time to become the sharper focus. This vacuum is generally filled or usurped by the internal succession battles of post-liberation or settlement parties. Society is often an endnote of the political shenanigans associated with it. 

 

Looking at the suitors to the ANC throne, or its contenders, it is clear that their ambitions to be President are so central to their legitimacy and the credibility of the ANC that there is little space or incentive to be pragmatic about simple issues like fighting a battle that has long been lost such as the MK Party litigation safaris. The impact of individual ambition to lead the ANC being diffused by a context that chokes self-promotion in the ANC limits the ability of a society or its members to see where the next potential leader stands on critical matters such as a vital role for the state, limited and controlled use of the market and the private sector, energy policy, and other doctrinal issues required to turn the fortunes of South Africans. As a result, even if the governing party has reached the upper limit of its power and influence as a collective, collectives are known to equilibrate at the lowest standard point. The brighter amongst its leaders cannot rise beyond the imagination of the collective. 

 

By their nature, coalitions can disrupt established dogmas of the previously dominant, as we've seen in societies where the collective imagination was stifled. The youthful leadership in all potential coalition partners could drive the leadership succession debate to include the necessity of innovative and creative youth to match emerging competition at the level of requisite political c-suites in the country. The depth, content, character, and management of the MK Party name debacle, the sloppiness in dealing with economic recovery decisions, the bar set on what are the issues in this election, and the black-out on the geopolitical significance of the 2024 vote are all indicative of the potential impact of the succession battle on policy articulation, and thus the ideological and doctrine line. This understanding should inform our audience of potential changes in South Africa's political landscape. 

 

Unless the coalition negotiations take the form of upping the bar about where the country should go, the succession battles within what is arguably the nexus of our political life, the governing party, will continue to pull the country to the bar set by winning factions therein. We have seen how Polokwane has redefined our trajectory as a developing nation; the slide has only been bumpy but continues. Unless we stop political ambitions which are etched on and are propelled by a complex mix of victimhood, grievance, and entitlement and introduce as our new blossoms a different posture to our South Africanness, coalitions might sink us more profoundly than we already are. 

Without any briefing on the desirability of coalition governments, the only visible advantage of getting into such a context is the opportunity it might provide for a comprehensive reset of the democratic order. The brute truth is that it will hollow out the sovereignty of the majority rule principle reminiscent of democracies such as the one South Africa has been in conflict about. On the other hand, and yet another truth, it might be the readiness of majority votes to attract parties to understand their political party membership obligations to all South Africans. CUT!!!!