The th!nc Foundation

The ANC’s loss of absolute power to govern has necessitated its transition into a coalition government mode. This loss carries significant implications, representing a substantial territorial gain for the opposition complex on all fronts. Despite the 40% performance of the ANC at the polls being derived from a low voter turnout base, it remains the majority party, albeit below the absolute power threshold. The political power situation the ANC faces is markedly different from previous episodes; it must now share its remaining power with those seeking to claim it.  Following the May 2024 elections, in which all political parties performed below 50%, RSA political leaders agreed that a coalition government arrangement would ensure the stability of the democratic order. This decision marked a monumental shift in the political power structure of South Africa. The opposition complex, previously occupied by parties to the right of the ANC, now sees the MK Party, with its ambitious l...

  As the government of national unity (GNU) evolves, South Africa must adapt or suffer the consequences of its choice. The adaptation process, however, is usually plodding, if it happens at all. President Cyril Ramaphosa's call to steer the country into a service delivery-focused direction has thus far enjoyed the support of the markets and significant sections within his party. This is notwithstanding a sophisticated resistance from within the ranks of his party, mainly at the behest of an unfolding succession battle. The internal-to-his-party difficulty he has encountered is no surprise. Since the formalisation of the new split on 16 December 2023, the unity of the governing party on several policy matters has been vulnerable, which is acute in the GNU. The outcome of the May 2024 elections revealed a new challenge for the ANC: entering a phase in which its coalition partner choices would be measured against the matrices of stabilising the country and securing the continuity of...

  The African National Congress is officially still pursuing a National Democratic Revolution. When interrogated about what it ideologically stands for, except for the amorphous broad-church response, the most crisp answer is its pursuit of a continuous National Democratic Revolution whose end state is a National Democratic Society.    The defining features of such a society are its non-racial, non-sexist, united, democratic, and prosperous character. The condition for such a society to exist has constantly been transferring political, economic, and social control power to the people. The characterisation of April 27, 1994, as a democratic breakthrough and the non-characterisation of 10 December 1996, as a day of the power to build a National Democratic Society, has arguably rendered the NDR still ongoing.    Suppose the NDR is the basis of ANC ideology or the structure within which it goes about being ideological, as an amorphous broad church? The next ...

  This was published in TimeLive 16 October 2024 As the reality of the last term of Ramaphosa starts to sink within the ranks of the ANC, the Gauteng posture on the GNU may be seen as the firing of the starting gun to mark the beginning of a race towards 16 December 2027. After an embarrassing 40% performance in the 2024 elections, including the hung metropolitan municipalities, the Gauteng chapter of the ANC has had to respond. It now turns out that the Gauteng standoff with the national GNU arrangements is a touched domino the ANC-DA confidence-in-supply agreement dared not to see.  Opposition to a coalition with the DA as an anchor partner would have always been inevitable in the ANC-led Gauteng under Panyaza Lesufi. The tense skirmishes, particularly on the school's integration policies, have created an irreparable schism. There is also the character of the Gauteng PEC, most of whom were part of Malema as ANCYL President. It would be odd for critical members of that gene...

The announcement of the 2024 National and Provincial elections results will forever signify a posterity-defining moment for the hegemonic hold of the ANC over South African politics. This is a moment of profound significance, a turning point in the political landscape of South Africa. The absolute political power to govern the RSA might have evaporated forever if the evidence about political power remains irrefutable.   The sad faces of ANC officials at the IEC counting centre and rumours of shuttle coalition negotiations were not only the writing on the wall that politics in South Africa will never be the same again but an indication of a new dawn. The results put the concepts 'we the people' and ‘our people’ into their most consequential review state. Voters were expressive of   ‘sounds the call to come together’ in the national anthem in the most and uniquely RSA instructive way.  It is not that the ANC did not know that it was not its numerical supremacy at the...

This was published in the TimesLive on 08 October 2024 under the title "The Hlophe-JSC paradox: builders of the constitution couldn't have seen this coming. To say that justice has become a means to other ends and not an end itself is not a semantic quibble but a serious moral point. When the halls of justice appear to be more and more about protecting the establishment's interests, the opportunity to liberate South Africa's jurisprudence from its tormented past diminishes. The paradox that justice and freedom face in South Africa requires a truly blindfolded lady justice. With a history of justice that could wait for legislation to be drafted so that people could be charged, the notion of the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution has rendered most of South Africa's judicial officers refugees in an unfolding judicial system; they are expected to be pathfinders.  The apex requirement of an independent judiciary is for judicial officers to respect, promot...

The edited version, titled "If the ANC centre does not hold anarchy looms," was published in the Sunday Times on 06 October 2024. The fierce contest to determine who the first citizen of the National Capital City has begun. It is symptomatic of the pending succession battles in several, if not all, political parties. It is not only the position of the Mayor at stake but the resilience of the GNU, an ANC-led coalition to renew South Africa, which is also at stake. At play is an indifferent cohort of in-ANC activists determined to optimise ANC hegemony over the foundational principles of the GNU. Tshwane is an abstraction of the general that is less reported about or publicly debated, yet intense within the ANC.  It is not a secret that the ANC's heritage of democratic centralism and towing the party line sustains the GNU more than the public posture. The centrality of the political power transferred to the people in 1994 is the ultimate prize pursued by the ANC, despite ...

The inconvenient rise of the MK Party, a political entity that has emerged as an alternative to the ANC's liberation movement's agenda, is upending the political landscape of South Africa. The global liberal order, which has been working hard to absorb the ANC's cognitive elite and neutralise its flirting with leftist ideology and rhetoric, has reached its investment cashing-in moment. The plan, which might currently be at risk, has always been to capture the ANC brand and its valuable political capital 'We liberated South Africa' character.   Save for the governing party-related challenges of service delivery, the accumulated political and social capital is at the risk of being hollowed out by the political heist of the famous Mandela quote when uMkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC was established in 1961; "The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices – submit or fight". The MK Party has neatly branded itself as t...

The edited version was published in TimesLive on 28th September 2024 The DA is factually removed as the face or head of the capital city's executive authority. The tyranny of no absolute majority power has reared its head again in Tshwane. The power interregnum will last as long as the political bickering for who should lead continues. With the GNU configurations, expectations of the DA must-go coalitions, and the real need for the political stability of the capital city, the outcome of the new coalition negotiations might yield completely unexpected permutations of who ultimately governs Tshwane.  It is not a secret that the NEC harboured some discomforts about this specific regime change in Tshwane. Previous attempts at taking over the administration of Tshwane from the DA, including the failed Section 139 intervention, were pre-GNU indications of the Gauteng Provincial Government's deep-seated discontent with political power configurations in the Capital City.  The co...