30.76% is catastrophic, but not a death knell: The resilience of the ANC

For exactly three decades, the African National Congress (ANC) operated not merely as a political party, but as the organisational embodiment of South Africa’s liberation. Its claim to govern was treated by its leadership as an enduring historical mandate.

However, the 2024 General Elections and the 2026 Local Government Elections shattered this paradigm. In 2024, the ANC’s national support declined to 40.18%, a staggering drop from the 57.5% it secured in 2019.

The ANC termed the 2024 decline a “strategic setback”, meaning that the decline posed a serious structural and strategic threat to the intensification of the prosecution of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) for fundamental transformation in South Africa.

Just two years later, following the 4 November 2026 Local Government Elections, the ANC’s electoral support plummeted to 30.76%, with major losses in urban centres. ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula described the decline as “catastrophic” during his media conference on 7 November 2026. In other words, the election outcomes represented a major disaster, a bloodbath.

The November 2026 Local Government Elections delivered a definitive and “catastrophic” electoral decline, ruthlessly exposing the “strategic setback” vocabulary as an entirely unsustainable semantic shield. Plummeting to a historic 30.76% nationally, with unprecedented losses across all provinces, the ANC watched its traditional urban and rural strongholds dissolve into a chaotic landscape of hung councils.

Despite the catastrophic nature of the outcomes, the ANC’s local government political footprint remains unmatched, with 3,246 councillors, majorities in 53 municipal councils and the position of largest party in 128 municipalities. This grassroots capacity represents a massive opportunity for recovery.

The electoral decline of former liberation movements is a phenomenon not unique to South Africa. By placing the ANC’s decline and possible recovery alongside those of other African liberation movements, such as the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) in Namibia and Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in Tanzania, we can identify a universal pattern of post-liberation decay and, in some instances, strong recovery.

Both SWAPO and CCM experienced serious declines in their electoral fortunes and, through an agonising and painstaking process of organisational renewal and reset, managed to recover lost ground. There are also precedents in the ANC’s own history that offer a possible blueprint for recovery.

First, this article argues that, although catastrophic, the 2026 electoral outcomes are not a death knell, as the ANC is embedded with the capacity to recover from setbacks and defeats. However, the ANC needs to take to heart the fact that there will be no miracle recovery. There will also be no recovery if the ANC merely fiddles at the margins when dealing with the major socio-economic challenges facing the country.

Equally, there will be no recovery through the manoeuvrings of dominant factions, nor will there be recovery without meaningful and purposeful renewal.

From this catastrophe, an agonising and painstaking process of renewal must be embarked upon. Second, the article argues that the prospects of recovery could be strengthened if the ANC draws lessons from its own history of recovering from setbacks, as well as the turnaround strategies employed by SWAPO and CCM.

The resilience of the Spear: The ANC’s history of recovery from setbacks

The contemporary political landscape of South Africa is defined by a profound sense of political crisis. Following the tectonic shifts of the 2024 General Elections, in which the ANC dropped to an unprecedented 40.18% of the national vote, and the subsequent electoral catastrophe of the November 2026 Local Government Elections, analysts have rushed to declare the terminal decline of Africa’s oldest liberation movement.

Confronted by systemic municipal collapses, a fractured Alliance and the aggressive rise of populist breakaway formations, the ANC appears trapped in an irreversible downward spiral. However, evaluating the ANC solely through the lens of its post-apartheid governance failures ignores a fundamental characteristic of its organisational DNA: its extraordinary historical capacity for resilience, adaptation and structural recovery.

Throughout its 114-year existence, the ANC has repeatedly stood at the precipice of absolute extinction. It has survived devastating state-sponsored purges, paralysing internal ideological schisms, prolonged periods of exile and crushing strategic defeats. Each time the movement has been written off by contemporary observers, it has managed to leverage its deep grassroots presence, organisational agility and unique culture of self-correction to engineer dramatic political turnarounds.

To understand whether the current electoral crises represent a permanent twilight or merely another agonising chapter of organisational mutation, one must examine the historical precedents of the ANC’s resilience.

There are several instances of the ANC recovering from near-collapse in the past. These include the organisational paralysis of the 1930s; its tactical pivot following the catastrophic clampdown on the Defiance Campaign in the 1950s; the arrest of its leadership core in the 1950s and 1960s; its banning in 1960, followed by the establishment of a foreign mission; its structural rebirth after the Wankie and Sipolilo military disasters of 1967–68, which led to the watershed Morogoro Conference; and its navigation of internal fissures and negotiations in the early 1990s, compounded by the assassination of Chris Hani.

As already mentioned, this article argues that the ANC possesses an enormous capacity to recover from setbacks. The question facing the modern movement is not whether it has the capacity to recover, but whether it retains the political will to activate its traditional mechanisms of renewal.

When the ANC’s historical capacity to recover from defeats is evaluated in its entirety, a repeatable blueprint emerges. The fact is that the ANC has never survived its crises through superficial public relations campaigns or semantic denial. It has survived by executing profound and agonising internal transformations and repositioning.

The catastrophic outcomes of the 2024 and 2026 elections do not automatically or inevitably mark the end of the ANC. Its political credibility, organisational machinery and number of councillors provide it with unmatched opportunities. History shows that the ANC has walked through far darker valleys and has successfully emerged reconstituted, reimagined and re-energised.

However, history is not a protective shield; it is merely an empirical guide. The ANC’s capacity for recovery has never been automatic. It has always been strictly conditional on the willingness of its leadership to face reality without delusion and ruthlessly execute renewal.

SWAPO: Ability to manage leadership transition

For Southern Africa’s liberation movements, the modern political landscape is defined by a common crisis: the erosion of post-independence majorities. When the ANC lost its outright parliamentary majority, it mirrored an ongoing struggle faced by its sister movement across the border, SWAPO.

However, unlike movements that have plummeted into terminal decline, SWAPO’s trajectory provides a unique lesson. At its peak of political dominance in 2014, SWAPO secured 86% of the vote, followed by an electoral decline to 56% in 2019. This 20-percentage-point decline was accompanied by a loss of support in key urban centres such as Windhoek, Walvis Bay and Swakopmund.

While the party suffered a severe electoral shock, its subsequent strategies allowed it to stabilise and secure critical recoveries in local and regional elections. A pivotal moment in SWAPO’s recovery was its ability to navigate internal leadership transition challenges without suffering permanent splits.

The party adapted by electing Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah as its president and eventual head of state. As Namibia’s first female president, her election signalled institutional modernisation and a break from stagnant patriarchal structures. In the 2024 General Elections, SWAPO’s electoral support experienced an upward trajectory, reaching 58%.

SWAPO’s lowest point occurred during the 2019 General Elections, when it lost 20 percentage points of its electoral support amid severe corruption scandals, such as the Fishrot case, and economic stagnation.

However, by focusing heavily on basic municipal service delivery, tackling internal gatekeeping and exploiting a highly fragmented opposition, SWAPO staged a major comeback, reclaiming several local authorities.

For the ANC, which has lost control of vital metropolitan municipalities, this is a vital case study. Electoral recovery requires leaders with whom ordinary people can easily identify, as opposed to detached leaders. It also requires moving away from abstract historical narratives and focusing on practical local government accountability, basic service delivery and reversing the “sins of incumbency”.

SWAPO’s journey demonstrates that electoral decline is not necessarily a one-way street. If a liberation movement can successfully curb corruption, modernise its leadership structures and deliver consistent municipal services, it can rebuild trust with a disillusioned electorate.

CCM: Magufuli’s decisive leadership

The extraordinary electoral trajectory of CCM offers a compelling case study of how a liberation movement can adapt, survive and systematically consolidate its authority. As Africa’s longest-governing ruling party, CCM has defied the political and ideological decline experienced by many of its regional contemporaries. Instead, it has orchestrated a spectacular electoral recovery, culminating in a near-total monopolisation of Tanzania’s politics.

To comprehend the scale of this recovery, one must look back to the mid-2010s, when CCM’s seemingly unassailable grip on power appeared to be slipping.

In the 2015 General Election, a unified opposition coalition capitalised on growing public discontent, particularly in key urban centres, over corruption and economic stagnation, capturing an unprecedented 41% of the national vote.

Confronted with a genuine democratic challenge, CCM, under the late President John Magufuli’s “business unusual” dispensation, introduced aggressive strategies to address the concerns of urban voters. These included massive investment in socio-economic infrastructure and a strong push to industrialise the country. At the same time, CCM introduced programmes to provide tangible support to the informal sector of the economy.

Magufuli initiated this socio-economic transformation, aggressively reasserted the party’s radical posture while simultaneously improving the state’s planning and execution capacity. Together with these initiatives, including popular anti-corruption programmes, the groundwork was laid for a dramatic reversal of the electoral decline.

The pivotal turning point occurred during the 2020 General Election, when CCM secured 84% of the national vote, with a significant increase in its electoral support in urban areas. This saw the opposition virtually annihilated in the National Assembly.

Ultimately, CCM’s electoral recovery demonstrates a model of decisive leadership in times of crisis. By masterfully blending the historic legitimacy of a liberation movement with the enforcement of organisational discipline and the eradication of patronage networks within the party, CCM successfully reversed its electoral decline.

There should be no holy cows

The electoral decline experienced by both SWAPO and CCM was driven by the loss of support in urban centres. There appears to be an unresolved tension between urban voters, particularly the black urban middle class, and the governance style and trajectory of former liberation movements.

Corruption, economic stagnation, the high cost of living and unemployment are the major triggers of discontent among urban voters. As we can see with SWAPO and CCM, the urban middle-class social stratum vacillates. Until it witnesses concrete efforts geared towards addressing its socio-economic hardships, it will withhold its votes or support opposition parties.

The lesson from SWAPO is clear: leadership transitions cannot merely be a matter of internal compromises between factions. They must actively signal organisational renewal to a sceptical electorate. When a liberation movement presents fresh, untainted leadership that commands cross-generational appeal, it can aggressively arrest voter apathy and counter opposition momentum.

The lesson from CCM is that, during times of crisis that pose serious reversals to democratic gains, an organisation requires decisive leadership to stop organisational decay.

The ANC requires its own “business unusual” dispensation. Any approaches to rescue the party from this catastrophe must be accompanied by tangible programmes to mitigate the socio-economic hardships confronting the electorate, a ruthless fight against corruption and decisive action to make organisational renewal the central pillar of ANC work.

There should be no holy cows.

Being voted into power is no longer guaranteed by the past; it is strictly conditional on the present. The ANC stands at a definitive historical crossroads. It can continue to use the comforting vocabulary of “strategic setbacks” to hide an undignified slide into permanent political irrelevance, or it can embark on a programme of renewal.

It must seize the terrifying clarity of the 2026 defeat to launch a disciplined, ruthless and profound organisational turnaround modelled on the historical recoveries of SWAPO and CCM.

To recover, the ANC must execute radical structural reforms over the next 24 months to avoid becoming politically irrelevant after the 2029 General Elections.

By Dr Zamani Saul, Northern Cape ANC Provincial Chairperson