South Africa needs its own Reform Party - Daniel Rhodes

Key topics:

• The West’s political revolt challenges post-war liberal consensus.

• South Africa’s opposition is weak; reform needs bold, localised power shifts.

• A new Reform Party could empower communities and challenge ANC dominance.

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By Daniel Rhodes*

The West is in revolt. From Donald Trump in the U.S. to Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Nigel Farage in the U.K., a sweeping Paleo-Western revolution is reshaping democratic politics. As Professor Koos Malan notes, this upheaval rivals past ideological shifts - like the French Revolution, 20th-century liberalism, and even communism in its prime. At its core is a rejection of the post-war liberal consensus, now seen by many as a betrayal of the West’s foundational values.

Where non-racial meritocracy once stood, we now have race-based quotas and identity politics. Neutral institutions have been captured by intersectional ideologues who wield race, gender, and sexuality to silence dissent and rewrite history. The very pillars that built the modern West - legal traditions, universities, civic norms - are now torn down as “colonial relics.”

While this revolt gathers pace in Europe and North America, South Africa remains static - or worse, regressive. Ironically, the “New South Africa” pioneered many of these liberal-progressive experiments and is now suffering their full consequences, just as the West begins to push back.

Politically, South Africa faces a dead end. The historic opposition - once rooted in centre-right, Western-aligned values - has been neutralised through the new GNU. Voters face a false choice: ANC dominance in softer form, or radical African nationalism from the EFF and MK. The DA defends its role in the GNU as the “lesser of two evils.” As John Steenhuisen told U.S. officials, the alternative is a government that includes parties openly calling to “kill the Boer.”

But the lesser evil is still an evil. The results are clear: racial redistribution, centralised power, collapsing institutions, and elite patronage. This is no coalition for reform - it is a coalition for decay.

South Africa’s ideological divide is entrenched. Roughly two-thirds of voters consistently back African nationalist parties, while only a third aligns with classical Western values and seeks decentralisation, competent governance, and respect for individual and cultural rights. This structural imbalance has left minority communities politically demoralised, their energy drained by decades of futility. For many, civic engagement has dwindled to little more than voting - if at all.

Across the West, the Paleo-Western Revolution has been driven by a silent majority of working- and middle-class taxpayers. In South Africa, that same constituency exists - albeit as a silent minority - and is ripe for political insurgency.

Though a national minority, they form a clear majority in regions like the Western Cape. Since 1994, most Western Cape voters have never supported the ANC, which sank to just 19.6% in the province in 2024. South Africa’s quasi-federal system offers real potential for autonomy, especially through provincial legislation. Yet the DA - despite governing the province since 2009 - has been risk-averse, even obstructive, in using these levers.

They rejected the FF Plus’ Western Cape People’s Bill, failed to pass their own Provincial Powers Bill, and quietly abandoned their pledge to call provincial referenda. In a time of national crisis, the Western Cape doesn’t need a cautious bureaucrat like Alan Winde - it needs a visionary disruptor, a Lee Kuan Yew.

And the opportunity extends beyond the Western Cape. Communities across South Africa can and should assert their right to self-determination - a right recognised in both domestic and international law. Whether through reclaiming services from failed ANC-run municipalities or defending Afrikaans education from centralised laws like BELA, the tools exist. If Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal can be taken from the ANC in 2029, reformist governments there could break its grip on South Africa’s economic and cultural centres.

What’s missing is a political vehicle capable of uniting this constituency behind a bold, uncompromising agenda. South Africa doesn’t just need more opposition - it needs its own Reform Party.

Let’s be clear: this is not a call for yet another splinter party chasing 5% of the vote, only to sell out its principles for cabinet posts and become part of the patronage machine. South Africa already has plenty of those. What’s needed is not a party that seeks power for its own sake, but one that seeks to take power away from an unaccountable, centralised government in Pretoria and return it to South Africa’s communities. 

This party must be a platform for community leaders, entrepreneurs, and civil society activists who refuse to stand by while the country unravels. It must champion bottom-up governance by pushing for the devolution of power to the most local level possible. That includes supporting minority communities within dysfunctional municipalities to legally take control of essential services, public safety, and infrastructure - using existing legislation or pioneering new legal mechanisms.

Where the Reform Party enters municipal coalitions or gains control, it should challenge the legal basis for race-based procurement, restore meritocratic administration, and introduce municipal watchdogs - “DOGEs” - to root out waste, fraud, and abuse.

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At the provincial level, particularly in the Western Cape, the Reform Party must champion assertive legislation that pushes provincial autonomy to the constitutional limit. This includes exploiting concurrent competencies like trade, housing, and disaster management - areas in which the national government has proven dangerously inept. Even in domains not currently classified as provincial powers, legal loopholes offer potential openings. These must be explored and tested, setting new precedents for proactive provincial governance.

Above all, the Western Cape must be empowered to protect itself - regardless of what happens nationally. If the rest of South Africa continues down the path of African nationalism under the ANC and EFF, the Western Cape must be free to chart its own course, not just to survive, but to thrive. A provincial referendum on independence is not a radical demand - it is a democratic imperative, both for the Western Cape and for ideological and cultural minorities across South Africa.

Should South Africa follow the tragic trajectory of Rwanda or other African states devastated by socialism and ethnic violence, a secure refuge for targeted minorities and their capital becomes essential. Strategically, the Western Cape holds immense geopolitical value. It is a natural ally of the West - polls show over 63% of residents support closer ties with the EU and US - and Cape Independence would ensure the Cape Sea Route remains free from BRICS domination, particularly from Chinese Communist Party influence.

What’s needed now is not another career politician, but a figure motivated by civic duty - someone with no personal ambition for power, but a deep commitment to the country’s future. A modern-day Cincinnatus: the Roman farmer called to lead in a moment of crisis, who defeated Rome’s enemies and returned to his plough just sixteen days later. South Africa’s Western-minded people need a leader who will step forward not to rule, but to rescue - and then step back.

Rob Hersov is the most compelling candidate for such a role.

Entrepreneurial. Speaks plainly and punches hard. Hersov is everything the current political class is not. He has credibility, something no current politician in South Africa can claim. And his rising social media footprint, coupled with his unfiltered, no-nonsense messaging, is already striking a chord with a disillusioned public desperate for real leadership.

Through his soon-to-be-launched Truth Report initiative, Hersov is already reshaping the media landscape - amplifying the voices long ignored or silenced by the mainstream. If he succeeds in uniting South Africa’s fragmented alternative media ecosystem, the logical next step is to do the same for its fractured political opposition.

Whether he’s willing to take on that challenge remains to be seen. Hersov has publicly stated he has no desire for elected office and intends to step back from active political engagement. But history is full of reluctant leaders who answered the call when it mattered. In 2021, Nigel Farage resigned as leader of Reform UK, seemingly closing the book on his political career. Today, he’s on course to lead a national revolution in British politics.

South Africa doesn’t just need a new party. It needs a counter-elite - a decisive break from the post-1994 consensus that delivered centralised failure, racial division, and bureaucratic decay. With the right leadership and a clear message, the Paleo-Western revolt that is reshaping the West can find a home here, too. The question is no longer whether such a movement is needed. The question is: who will have the courage to lead it?

*Daniel Rhodes is a politics student and member of the Cape Youth Front.