DUMA GQUBULE | Beginning of end of eight wasted years

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ExpandANC president the Cyril Ramaphosa during the ANC local government election manifesto launch in Johannesburg. The writer says he has by far the worst political and economic record of any ANC leader since 1994. Picture: Antonio Muchave The local government elections on November 4 will be the beginning of the end of the “eight wasted years” under President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has by far the worst political and economic record of any ANC leader since 1994.

When he became ANC president in December 2017 his supporters said he was popular, business-friendly and liked by white people, who would invest in the economy. But after four electoral disasters ― in 2019 and 2024 at the national level and 2021 and 2026 at local level ― the numbers will show that he has been the most unpopular ANC president since the first democratic election in 1994.

He will have put the nail in the coffin of what was once one of the world’s greatest liberation movements.

It will be difficult to argue against the conspiracy theorists who say he was sent to destroy the ANC. The two national electoral disasters ― when the ANC lost 4.7 and 17.3 percentage points respectively ― account for more than 85% of the party’s 26 percentage point loss since 2009. In 2021 ANC support (ward and proportional representation votes combined) fell by 8.3 percentage points to 45.6%.

In two weeks’ time the ANC is heading for a further collapse of 12-13 percentage points to about 33%, according to an average of the polls analysis by academic and podcaster Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh. The ANC’s electoral support will have collapsed by about 21 percentage points or 72% of the party’s total losses since 2016.

From 2018-25 South Africa had an annual average GDP growth rate of 0.6%. By comparison, there were annual average GDP growth rates of 2.7% under Nelson Mandela (1994-98), 4% under Thabo Mbeki (1999–2008) and 1.6% under Jacob Zuma (2009-17).

From the fourth quarter of 2017 to the second quarter of 2026 the number of unemployed people soared by 3.8-million and the expanded unemployment rate (including discouraged job seekers) increased to 43.8% from 36.3%.

For the economy, Ramaphosa’s presidency is the worst since 1994. His supporters say there have been three shocks to the world economy during his presidency ― the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and the war in Iran. But the economy was collapsing before the pandemic, and there were three consecutive quarters of declining GDP before the lockdowns.

By comparison, in 2018-25 154 emerging and developing economies cruised to an annual average GDP growth rate of 3.8%. Emerging and developing Asia (30 countries) grew 5% a year. If one excludes two years of lockdowns, South Africa has had one of the slowest recoveries in the world, with an annual average GDP growth rate of 1.1% from 2022-25.

During this period emerging and developing economies had an annual average GDP growth rate of 4.2%. Emerging and developing Asia had an annual average GDP growth rate of 5.2%.

Let us also not forget the “six years of darkness”. In 2018 Eskom had an energy availability factor of 78% and its plants were fine. But 95% of the energy shed by Eskom since 2007 was shed during Ramaphosa’s presidency. There is nothing that happened before 2018 that caused the unprecedented plant breakdowns.

In a normal party a leader who loses 22 percentage points in two national elections and 21 percentage points in two local elections and presides over declining GDP per capita, soaring unemployment and the country’s worst energy crisis would certainly be recalled.

But the ANC is so dysfunctional, ideologically paralysed and fragmented it is possible that Ramaphosa could limp on as a lame duck president until the party’s next national conference in December 2027.

• Gqubule is an adviser on economic development and transformation.

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