Hartford: SA’s political crisis – The ANC faces a reckoning as populist offshoots split the nationalist legacy

After 30 years of democracy, South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) finds itself at a historic crossroads. The grand promises of the national democratic revolution have crumbled, exposing a nation burdened by the world's highest inequality and deep disillusionment. Meanwhile, the ANC's one-time proteges—the EFF and MK—have fractured off, wielding radical populism. The former liberation giant now faces an existential question: What does it truly stand for? As the ANC grapples with its own identity, its future hinges on whether it can evolve beyond past failures and escape the shadow of its chaotic offshoots.

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By Dirk Hartford

The total bankruptcy of the African nationalist political project of the ANC – the national democratic revolution, the two-stage revolution – is now on full display as never before, after 30 years of democracy, to the most unequal (genie coefficient), long-suffering society on the entire planet.

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