The Institure for Race Relations (IRR) says that the performance of the African National Congress (ANC) in the recent local elections raises the spectre of the party losing its national majority in the 2019 national and provincial elections.
IRR CEO Dr Frans Cronje said, “The results are devastating for the ANC and we expect that opposition parties will redouble their efforts to undermine the party on issues ranging from corruption to Jacob Zuma and South Africa’s weak economic performance. We ascribe most of the ANC’s poor political performance to the economy. There is a close correlation between the economic standing of households and their confidence in the future.
“In real terms, GDP per capita levels are falling – which last happened during the year of the global financial crisis and before that, in the volatile 1980s. If the ANC cannot secure an economic turnaround ahead of 2019, let alone if South Africa slips into recession, then the race for 2019 will be extremely close. If GDP per capita keeps falling, or falls very sharply, we might even raise the prospect of a 2019 ANC defeat to a probability. Frighteningly for the
ANC, many of its economic policies seem almost calculated to slow economic progress. We wait to
see whether it can react to save itself”.
