It is amazing how history can fit itself into the lifetime of a single human being. In the year 2024, SA will witness the end of 76 years of nationalist governments.
The first was an Afrikaner nationalist government, which ruled South Africa for 46 years. The second one, whose death we are currently witnessing, and which will be buried in 2024, is an African nationalist government that will have ruled South Africa for 30 years.
In a democracy, history happens without most people realising it. In January 1994, I was 18 and registered for matric under president FW de Klerk. When I wrote exams 10 months later, we were under president Nelson Mandela. Such is history.
What my generation experienced in 1994 will repeat itself in 2024. If, and it’s a big IF, President Cyril Ramaphosa remains in office until the next general elections, a matriculant in January that year will be under the last president of SA from the ANC. By October the same year, 2024, there will be a new president who, for the first time since 1994, will not be a member of the ANC.
The results of the recent municipal elections covey a clear message about SA’s political future: the ANC will not be the government of the country after 2024.
For more than a decade now, the ANC has been in decline. And, for the first time, the party fell below 50% nationally.
The trends are clear. In 2024, the ANC will score in the upper 20s in Gauteng, and in the lower 30s in KwaZulu-Natal. That alone will see the ANC kicked out of power at the national level.
Indeed, David Makhura and Sihle Zikalala must start packing. But they must not loot. If they do, the new government will swiftly lock them up.
Things will be made worse by the factional fights that will intensify in the next few weeks within the ANC. RET knives are currently being sharpened to stab Ramaphosa. The pretext is readily available: the ANC’s poor performance in the elections.
The fight will go all the way to the ANC’s elective conference next year. That conference will literally see blood on the floor. It will be the most chaotic and dangerous of all ANC conferences. It will make Morogoro (1969) look like kindergarten.
In fact, next year’s conference may not even take place. If it does, it will either fail to adopt credentials or end in absolute mayhem. Please read this column again in December next year.
By the time we reach 2024, there will be consensus even among the blind that the thing once called the ANC will have disappeared. The only thing left will be for voters to drive the final nail into the ANC’s coffin.
Think of a scenario where the infighting becomes so intense that Ramaphosa decides to throw in the towel and announces that he is not standing for a second term.
That scenario is not far-fetched. What exactly would Ramaphosa gain by standing for a second term? Or what could he do to save the ANC?
It would actually be in the interest of Ramaphosa not to stand for a second term; for, if he does, he would go down in history as the leader who presided over the ANC’s burial. It would therefore make sense for Ramaphosa to hand over the corpse to an RET funeral director.
Ramaphosa has another reason to throw in the towel. It is now more than three years since he became SA’s president. And, overall, the man has been a total disaster.
Where is the new dawn he promised us? Is there less or more unemployment under Ramaphosa? Has he ended load-shedding? Has Jacob Zuma finished his jail term under Ramaphosa?
If Ramaphosa were to stand for a second term, what else would he promise – a new dusk? The best the man can do is to wear a Mandela shirt and tell us that, like the dead old man he has been trying to emulate, he too will serve only one term. That is the only dignified exit available to Ramaphosa.
This brings us to the question in the book, The Fall of the ANC: What Next? The answer to this question is now less obscure than it was when the book was first published back in 2014.
SA will be under a coalition government from 2024 onwards. The leading players will be ActionSA, the DA, and the EFF. To confirm, read this column immediately after the 2024 elections.
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