What the ANC’s Terminal Decline Means for the Future of South Africa

The latest polling from the Social Research Foundation and The Common Sense suggests that the ANC is in terminal decline and that South Africa’s political fragmentation is deepening.

The African National Congress (ANC) has hit a near record low national poll* number two years after the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) with the Democratic Alliance (DA),.

And as long as those results remain an economic growth rate of near 1%, the consequence will be that South Africa breaks up into the third of the three scenarios sketched by this newspaper in its recent South Africa in 2034: The Latest Scenarios report.

The ANC has fallen to 34.0% nationally, down from nearer 40.0% earlier this year and only two percentage points above its post-2025 VAT-crisis low. The DA remains broadly stable on 27.0%, the MKP has risen to 15.0%, while the EFF remains flat on 7.0%.

On top of that, the latest data suggest that the ANC has now additionally become trapped between two issues, which are serving as accelerants for that decline.

The first is Phala Phala.

Parties that have campaigned prominently on migration appear to be benefiting, while the ANC finds itself squeezed between growing public anger and its own inability to respond decisively.

These two issues reinforce one another. Phala Phala dilutes the distinction that many voters once drew between Ramaphosa and former President Jacob Zuma.

Increasingly they think both are crooks. At the same time, the ANC has no answers on jobs because it rejects the requisite reforms, and no answers on migrants because it is impossible to expel them, and even if the government did, that would do nothing to address the jobs problem.

The party cannot therefore reverse either perception.

Nor can it address public anger over migration without faster economic growth, yet it remains resistant to many of the reforms required to achieve that.

There is also persistent chatter of an orchestrated “third-force” campaign designed to squeeze the ANC simultaneously on the Phala Phala and migration fronts.

To the extent that this is true, it is proving effective in accelerating the ANC’s decline.

The major metro data show the extent of that.

In Johannesburg and eThekwini, the ANC is polling below or at 20%. In Tshwane it is just above 30%.