South Africa to Hold Elections on May 29

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Facts

  • Pres. Cyril Ramaphosa's office on Tuesday proclaimed that South Africa will hold elections for the National Assembly, which elects the president and provincial legislatures in the country's nine provinces, on May 29.1
  • Ramaphosa seeks to secure a second and final five-year term in the seventh fully democratic national election in South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994, all of which his party — the African National Congress (ANC) — has won by a clear majority.2
  • Over 27M voters will head to the ballot box amid rising unemployment and rolling power outages — opinion polls suggest that support for the ANC has eroded to as low as 42%.3
  • Though the Democratic Alliance (DA) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are the main opposition parties in South Africa, some traditional ANC voters could switch to the newly established uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) backed by former Pres. Jacob Zuma.4
  • DA leader John Steenhuisen has welcomed the setting of the date, declaring his party — which reportedly aims to defeat the ANC via the Multi Party Charter for South Africa coalition — is 'fully prepared for the challenge.'5
  • There is a chance that the EFF could become part of the new government if the ANC fails to secure more than 45% of the vote, in which case the ruling party would have to partner with one of its main rivals, as the DA-led coalition has pledged not to work with Ramaphosa's party.6

Sources: 1Reuters, 2Associated Press, 3Financial Times, 4Al Jazeera, 5The Mail & Guardian and 6Bloomberg.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by The Citizen. If political parties are really focused on the best interests of South Africa, the ideal outcome of the upcoming general election would be a pragmatic coalition between the ANC and the Democratic Alliance. While the former has institutional knowledge and wide popular support, the latter has proven managerial experience in Western Cape province and Cape Town.
  • Narrative B, as provided by IOL. Previous coalition experiences in local-level politics have shown that power-sharing arrangements in South Africa effectively immobilize the government and degenerate into a blame game. Given the near irreconcilable ideological divide between the leftist ANC and the pro-West Democratic Alliance, their alleged 'inevitable' coalition would be a complete disaster.

Predictions