Could ANC lose power in S Africa?

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s ANC party, the celebrated political force that led the struggle against apartheid rule and ushered in democracy, is preparing to elect a new leader — but it faces a perilous future.

The risk of losing power at the 2019 general elections has loomed large over its party conference where the new party chief will be chosen in the coming days.

Here are four ways the once unassailable African National Congress (ANC) could be ousted from office.

If Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma wins the conference vote, vanquishing front-runner and Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, Ramaphosa could lead his supporters out of the party. “If Ramaphosa loses, a split is possible,” Stellenbosch University politics professor Amanda Gouws told AFP.

The key alliance of the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) that fought against white-minority rule has already ruptured under Zuma’s leadership.

The SACP recently vowed to field its own candidates in elections instead of backing the ANC slate and won its first councillors in recent polls.

“The ANC appears to have nothing to offer citizens,” Gouws said. “This is a story of liberation movements all over Africa. They are hierarchical which opens the doors to corruption, then the decline sets in.” The country is in the grip of record unemployment, stagnant growth and endemic corruption.

The ANC was dealt a sharp shock in last year’s local elections when it suffered its worst-ever results. Dlamini-Zuma inspires little public support, while multi-millionaire Ramaphosa lacks credibility among many of the poorer voters.

“If they push leaders who do not have credibility and you add to that the extent of the scandals they have faced, they stand a very good chance of losing their majority in 2019,” political analyst Ralph Mathekga told AFP.