JOHN ENDRES: Collapse dynamics and the end of the ANC - Business Day

John Endres

The ANC has long seemed unassailable. Yet once squandered, legitimacy rarely returns. As the party loses the belief of citizens, institutions and even its own members, collapse may come not gradually but suddenly — and the signs of this are multiplying. 

For 30 years SA politics has revolved around a single certainty: the dominance of the ANC. Despite corruption, mismanagement and economic decline, the ANC remained the largest party, its position seemingly unassailable. The assumption was that whatever its failings it could not be displaced quickly. 

Yet history teaches otherwise. Social systems often look stable for years, only to collapse with stunning speed. The Soviet Union held together until it did not. The Berlin Wall stood for decades, until, one cold November night in 1989, it fell. It seemed that Nelson Mandela was destined to spend the rest of his life in prison — until February 2 1990, when then president FW de Klerk announced his release and triggered the end of apartheid. 

In retrospect, the signs showing us what lay ahead were obvious, but at the time the swiftness of the change surprised almost everyone. The ANC is vulnerable to the same pattern. The party’s strength lies not in its ability to get things done, of which it has provided precious little evidence. It lies in its legitimacy: the belief, deeply rooted in society, that its rule is rightful. This belief has been sustained by liberation credentials, the moral weight of its history, and the ubiquity of its worldview across civil society, media and institutions. 

But legitimacy is not a self-renewing resource. It must be nurtured and replenished. As the ANC’s failures have mounted, its claim to legitimacy has weakened. Citizens no longer believe the party’s hold on power is natural or inevitable. More and more they regard it with hostility, suspicion or contempt. They are dismissive of its lofty promises and scathing of its lack of tangible results. 

The national dialogue illustrates the point. Conceived as an exercise in national unity, it was meant to place the ANC at the centre of a broad, inclusive process and cement its reputation as the very embodiment of SA’s hopes and aspirations. Instead, it backfired. Opposition parties refused to participate, or withdrew after initially agreeing. Participants at the opening convention angrily vented their frustrations. The ANC was left exposed, trying to lead a national conversation in which much of the nation declined to engage. The result was not renewed legitimacy but visible weakness.

Even more striking is the shift in commentary. For years, much of the media and civil society shielded the ANC from harsh scrutiny, reinforcing its legitimacy. Increasingly, those same voices now criticise it openly. That change matters, because legitimacy is sustained not only by power but by narrative. When sympathetic commentators turn hostile, it signals that the ANC’s story is no longer compelling. 

Inside the party, too, whispers of collapse have surfaced. The ANC’s 2024 annual report mentions the word “crisis” no fewer than 20 times, including referring to an “existential crisis of the ANC”. Senzo Mchunu, the embattled police minister and member of the ANC’s national executive committee, recently warned that the ANC was on the verge of collapse. Though this was quickly denied by the leadership, such denials only confirm the underlying anxiety.

The whispers are getting louder. As external legitimacy erodes, internal self-belief weakens. A party that doubts itself makes poor choices. The ANC is already flailing: announcing grand processes such as the national dialogue only to see them mocked or ignored; promising reforms, only to watch them stall. 

This dynamic is self-reinforcing. Authority depends on compliance from citizens, from coalition partners, from bureaucrats. As authority weakens, compliance diminishes. Each failure narrows the ANC’s scope for action, which makes it look weaker still. This spiral is how sudden collapse takes hold. 

At this point the danger is not only implosion but radicalisation. The ANC may be drawn into closer alliance with the EFF and MK. On paper, their combined vote share exceeds 60%, a majority large enough to appear unassailable. They may convince themselves that this confers fresh legitimacy. 

But it would be a brittle legitimacy, based on numbers rather than belief. The policies they share — racial quotas, state control, hostility to markets — are precisely those that have failed SA. In harsher form they would accelerate decline, alienating the very constituencies whose support the ANC most needs to retain. 

In the short term, such an alliance might extend the ANC’s hold on office. In the long term, it would hasten the rejection of its entire ideological project. This is how sudden collapse works: it comes from the withdrawal of belief. Once citizens, institutions and elites cease to believe that a dominant party has legitimacy, every action it takes is met with resistance. Policies are ignored, initiatives undermined, authority flouted. Funding dries up. The party still holds office, but office without legitimacy is an empty shell. 

The tipping point is reached when even the party itself ceases to believe. At that stage, collapse can be swift indeed. The ANC is manoeuvring itself towards that point. Its history will not protect it indefinitely. Once lost, legitimacy is rarely regained. 

For the ANC, the likelihood is not that it will be toppled in one dramatic confrontation. It is that it will fade into irrelevance. Seemingly overnight, its authority will be ignored, its policies dismissed, its reputation squandered. The collapse, when it comes, will not be with a bang, but with a whimper. 

Endres is CEO of the SA Institute of Race Relations

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2025-09-05-john-endres-collapse-dynamics-and-the-end-of-the-anc/