ANDILE LUNGISA | From majority to 40%: a drop that low calls for a turn as drastic

The 2024 general elections did not merely mark a statistical decline in the African National Congress’s electoral fortunes, they signalled the end of an era. For the first time since 1994, the movement that once embodied the aspirations of the majority has slipped to roughly 40% of the national vote. It is a rupture.

For decades, the ANC governed under the protective canopy of electoral dominance. That dominance was numerical but also psychological, institutional and cultural. It fostered a dangerous assumption, that liberation credentials alone could sustain legitimacy indefinitely. Under this umbrella, complacency found refuge, matured and ultimately entrenched itself.

The storm has now arrived.

A 40% mandate is a demand for reinvention. It calls for a new cadre, not merely in age or identity, but in ethos. The ANC stands at a historic crossroads: either it undergoes a cultural pivot in how it governs, or it continues its slow erosion into irrelevance.

For nearly two decades the movement has drifted into what can only be described as bureaucratic inertia. Governance became procedural rather than purposeful and consequential. The revolutionary impulse that once drove decisive action was gradually replaced by an overreliance on process, meetings, committees and compliance frameworks, often detached from material outcomes. The state became a machine that moves but does not deliver.

In this procedural maze, accountability dissipated. Decisions were delayed, diluted or deferred. Service delivery, once the most tangible expression of democratic promise, became inconsistent at best, absent at worst. Communities across the country have endured failing infrastructure, unreliable electricity, collapsing municipalities and insufficient access to water and sanitation. These are not abstract failures, they are daily realities.

This condition reflects not only systemic weakness, but a deeper failure of governance culture. A capable and disciplined cadre deployed to the state must understand that leaving a critical government position vacant for more than a month is a manifestation of gross incompetence.

Equally, when infrastructure projects such as roads, planned for completion within three months, extend to six months with escalating costs, this must not be normalised as delay but recognised as both a failure of governance and a violation of public trust.

The consequences have been stark, expressed in stagnation in economic mobility, high crime rates, regression in public trust and a growing restlessness among the ANC’s traditional base. The very black communities that carried the movement to power now question whether it still carries them in return.

This restlessness has not translated into opposition votes. Instead, it has manifested as silence — an abstention from the ballot. South Africa’s declining voter turnout is a form of protest. It reflects a disillusionment so deep that participation itself feels futile. When citizens withdraw from the democratic process, it is not because they no longer care, it is because they no longer believe in the system.

The ANC must confront this truth with revolutionary honesty.

The 40% moment is an opportunity. It strips away illusion and exposes reality. In that exposure lies the possibility of renewal.

The crisis it faces is cultural. It is a crisis of governance philosophy. The movement must ask itself whether it has become an administrator of systems rather than an agent of change. Has it mistaken procedure for progress?

A cultural pivot is no longer optional. It must be urgent and uncompromising.

This turnaround requires a return to a results-driven governance ethos, one that prioritises delivery over deliberation, outcomes over optics and accountability over allegiance. It demands the cultivation of a new cadre defined not by loyalty alone but by competence, integrity and urgency. Such a cadre must also appreciate that the timely and efficient payment of service providers, particularly black entrepreneurs, is not an act of charity by the state, but a transformative economic intervention.

It is a concrete and necessary step towards altering entrenched patterns of asset ownership and advancing meaningful economic inclusion.

Revolutionary politics in the 21st century cannot be sustained by rhetoric alone; it must be measured in the lived conditions of the people.

Moreover, the ANC must rediscover its relationship with the masses. Not as a historical inheritance but as an active, daily engagement. Legitimacy must be earned continuously, not presumed indefinitely.

The 40% moment is an opportunity. It strips away illusion and exposes reality. In that exposure lies the possibility of renewal.

But renewal will not come through minor adjustments, tortured public relations campaigns or cosmetic reforms. It will require a fundamental shift in how the ANC understands power — not as a status symbol or a shield against accountability, but as an instrument to direct history through tangible action.

History has shown that liberation movements either evolve or they ossify. The ANC now faces that choice in its most concrete form.

The era of electoral dominance has ended. We, through our collective actions, could bring it back. However, what begins next will depend on whether the movement can summon the courage to transform itself, not tomorrow, not gradually, but now.

Andile Lungisa, ANC NEC member and former ANC Youth League deputy president