A conversation too many members are unwilling to have

There is a difficult conversation that many members of the African National Congress are unwilling to have. It is a conversation often postponed because it is too scary, emotionally charged and seemingly inconceivable to those of us who have known and accepted the ANC as the natural governing party of South Africa.

But history does not pause because organisations are uncomfortable with reality.

We must begin to prepare ourselves, psychologically, politically and organisationally, for a possibility that is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss: within our lifetime, the African National Congress may be completely out of power.

This is not a declaration of betrayal. It is not opposition propaganda. It is not an argument against the ANC. On the contrary, it is an argument born out of concern for the organisation and an understanding that political organisations that refuse to confront reality often become victims of the very reality they refuse to acknowledge.

The greatest danger facing the ANC today may not be its political opponents. It may be its inability to honestly look at itself.

The Electoral Decline Is Not an Accident

For decades, the ANC enjoyed overwhelming electoral dominance. In 1994, the organisation received a historic mandate to govern a democratic South Africa. That mandate was renewed repeatedly, election after election, with majorities that appeared almost unassailable.

But political history teaches us that no electoral mandate is permanent.

The decline has been gradual but unmistakable. From commanding nearly 70% of the national vote in the early years of democracy, the ANC’s support has steadily eroded. The 2024 National and Provincial Elections represented perhaps the clearest warning yet: the ANC received only 40.18% of the national vote, securing 159 of the 400 seats in the National Assembly and, for the first time since 1994, losing its outright parliamentary majority.

The political significance of that result cannot be understated.

Too often, we comfort ourselves with the phrase: “The ANC is still the biggest party.”

That statement may be factually correct, but politically it can become a dangerous sedative.

The question is not whether the ANC remains the biggest party today. The question is: What direction is the organisation travelling?

Politics is not only about where you are. It is about the trajectory.

And the current trajectory of the ANC should concern every serious ANC member and ordinary South African who have benefited from the existence of the ANC.

The ANC liberated South Africa. That is historical fact.

The ANC built democratic institutions. That is historical fact.

The ANC expanded access to housing, education, electricity, social protection and other basic services to millions who were deliberately excluded under apartheid. That is historical fact.

But history, however glorious, cannot vote.

A young unemployed person standing in a queue today cannot eat the memory of the Freedom Charter.

A community without water cannot wash itself with liberation credentials.

A graduate without employment cannot build a future on Struggle songs alone.

The painful reality is that a liberation movement can be historically correct and politically decline at the same time.

The 2026 Candidate List Crisis Is More Than an Administrative Mistake

The recent difficulties surrounding the submission of ANC councillor candidate lists for the 2026 Local Government Elections should therefore not be treated as a minor administrative embarrassment.

Reports indicate that the ANC faced serious difficulties in completing the submission of candidate lists in some municipalities, particularly involving proportional representation and ward candidates. The matter has been contested between the ANC and the Electoral Commission, with the IEC maintaining that its system functioned and that late submissions cannot simply be accommodated after the deadline.

Even more concerning is that this is not entirely without historical precedent. During the 2021 local government election process, the ANC also faced major problems relating to candidate-list submissions, reportedly affecting numerous municipalities and hundreds of wards before legal processes ultimately provided relief under the exceptional circumstances of that period.

We must ask ourselves a difficult question:

How does a 114-year-old liberation movement, with structures in every province, regions, subregions, branches and wards, arrive at a point where it struggles to complete one of the most fundamental requirements of participating in an election?

This is not simply about technology.

It is about organisational capacity.

It is about discipline.

It is about leadership.

It is about the consequences of internal political instability.

It is about whether our organisation still possess the institutional competence necessary to convert political ambition into administrative execution.

We Must Stop Assuming That the ANC Will Always Govern

For some, the idea of an ANC outside government is almost unimaginable.

But we must imagine it.

Not because we desire it, but because refusing to imagine a possibility does not prevent it from happening.

We must prepare ANC members for the possibility that one day the organisation may sit on the opposition benches nationally, provincially and in municipalities where it once governed comfortably.

We must prepare government employees who entered public service during ANC governments to defend the developmental agenda.

We must prepare ordinary citizens who benefited from ANC-led governments to understand that social progress gained under the leadership of the ANC can be defended through grassroots civil activism.

Most importantly, we must prepare ourselves to distinguish between love for the ANC and dependence on the ANC being in power.

These are not the same thing.

What Happens to the ANC When It Is No Longer the Governing Party?

This is perhaps the question we are least prepared to answer.

Can the ANC survive outside government?

Can branches function without councillors and municipal positions?

Can members remain committed when deployment opportunities disappear?

Can the organisation recruit young people purely on the strength of its ideas?

Can it become a movement again rather than merely an electoral machine?

These questions are uncomfortable because they expose a possibility that many members would rather avoid.

But perhaps the future survival of the ANC depends precisely on answering them.

A political organisation that derives its entire identity from governing becomes vulnerable when voters remove it from office.

A movement with a genuine ideological foundation, however, can survive electoral defeat.

The ANC must therefore decide what it wants to be.

Does it want to remain merely a party that governs?

Or does it want to remain a political movement capable of shaping society even when it does not control the state?

The ANC needs members who love the organisation enough to tell it the truth.

And the truth is that we are losing the confidence of significant sections of South African society.

Some of those voters have moved to opposition parties.

Some have become politically apathetic.

Some have simply stopped voting.

Others remain emotionally connected to the history of the ANC but no longer believe that the organisation in its current form represents the aspirations of their children.

We cannot insult these people back into voting for us.

We cannot threaten them back into voting for us.

We cannot remind them indefinitely about apartheid and expect that memory alone to sustain electoral support.

We must earn their confidence again.

A Generation That Did Not Experience Apartheid Is Growing Up

There is another reality that must be confronted.

A growing proportion of South Africans were born after 1994.

They did not experience pass laws.

They did not experience Bantu Education.

They did not experience political banning orders.

They did not experience the brutality of apartheid in the manner experienced by previous generations.

This does not mean they should be ignorant of history. On the contrary, political education remains essential.

But we must understand that younger generations will evaluate political organisations according to their lived reality.

They will ask:

Where are the jobs?

Why are municipalities collapsing?

Why is corruption still rampant?

Why does basic infrastructure deteriorate?

Why are young people unemployed?

Why do political leaders appear only during elections?

These questions cannot be answered with historical speeches alone.

The ANC must become relevant not only because of what it did yesterday, but because of what it can do tomorrow.

Preparing for Defeat Does Not Mean Surrendering

To suggest that the ANC may eventually lose power is not to advocate for its defeat.

It is to recognise a democratic reality.

In fact, acknowledging the possibility of defeat could be the beginning of renewal.

Perhaps the ANC needs to confront its mortality.

Perhaps an organisation that believes it can die politically will begin fighting seriously for its survival.

Perhaps branches will become active again.

Perhaps political education will return.

Perhaps competence will become more important than factional loyalty.

Perhaps communities will once again become the centre of politics.

Perhaps the candidate selection process will not be an opportunity to tear each other apart because of internal factions.

Perhaps leadership will understand that positions are temporary but organisations can be permanent.

The ANC’s greatest problem may be that too many of us still believe that electoral decline will automatically correct itself.

It will not.

No political organisation has a divine right to recovery.

Recovery requires work.

Renewal requires sacrifice.

And rebuilding trust requires more than resolutions.

South Africa Must Also Prepare for a Post-ANC Government

This conversation is not only for ANC members.

Ordinary South Africans must also prepare themselves for a future in which the ANC no longer governs.

The country must develop democratic institutions strong enough to survive changes in political power.

Public servants must serve the Constitution.

Communities must organise independently of election cycles.

Civil society must remain vigilant regardless of who governs.

And South Africans who have benefited from the democratic order ushered in under ANC leadership must understand that the defence of democracy cannot be outsourced to the ANC alone.

Perhaps this is one of the most important political transitions South Africa will experience in the coming decades.

The ANC may leave government.

But South Africa must not lose the democratic gains of 1994.

The organisation may lose elections.

But constitutional democracy must survive.

Governments may change.

But the dignity of black people, the rights of workers, the protection of the poor and the struggle for equality must remain permanent national commitments.

The Question Is Not Whether the ANC Will Die. The Question Is What Will Survive.

Every political organisation is mortal.

No party governs forever.

The history of liberation movements across the world demonstrates that historical legitimacy does not guarantee permanent electoral dominance.

The ANC must therefore prepare for a future beyond government.

Not because we have abandoned hope, but because mature politics requires us to understand that power is temporary.

Perhaps the real test of the ANC is still ahead.

Can it remain relevant when it no longer controls the state?

Can it organise when it no longer controls municipalities?

Can it inspire young people when it cannot offer positions?

Can it survive on ideology, organisational culture and political consciousness alone?

Those are questions we should begin asking now.

Because the truth is that the ANC may indeed be completely out of power within our lifetime.

And if that day comes, history will judge us not only on how we governed when we had power, but on whether we built an organisation, and a country, strong enough to survive when we no longer did.

As a concerned ANC member, I do not write this with celebration.

I write it with sadness.

I write it with anger.

But above all, I write it with urgency.

The warning signs are no longer whispers.

Our organisational weaknesses are increasingly visible.

Our historical authority is no longer translating automatically into political support.

We can continue pretending that every electoral decline is temporary, every organisational crisis is administrative, and every critic is an enemy.

Or we can finally look ourselves in the mirror.

The ANC does not need more praise from people who want positions.

It needs more truth from people who love it.

And sometimes the most revolutionary act of loyalty is to look an organisation you have dedicated your life to and say:

Comrade, we are in trouble!

Comrade, we are in trouble!
Sometimes the most revolutionary act of loyalty is to look an organisation you have dedicated your life to and tell it the truth.

Related reading

This is an opinion contribution. The views expressed are the author’s own.