In a polarised world of global 2024 turmoil, South Africa's GNU political miracle was a doozy

Every year in South African politics is bonkers in ways that rapidly become normalised. To give just two examples: In 2013, a radical new party enters Parliament dressed in the uniforms of labourers and domestic workers. In 2017, the country discovers that the president has in effect ceded control of the state to a single foreign family.

The concepts of the EFF and State Capture, respectively, became absorbed into the fabric of our chaotic body politic so quickly that today both are positively yawnworthy.

But even by these roller coaster standards, 2024 was a doozy. It was the year in which what once seemed utterly unthinkable came to pass: the ANC lost an election, for the first time in 30 years. And … life went on.

It was also the year in which a former president, reviled by the mainstream media and up to his eyeballs in litigation, made a thunderous political comeback, and then proceeded to reward family members and allies with plum jobs. In two countries: South Africa and the US.

It was the year in which we saw the index of the Zondo Commission’s damning final report grow legs and walk into Parliament as MPs for the MK party. We saw multiple white faces join the Cabinet of an African country. Load shedding, the greatest threat to economic stability, suddenly faded from view. Water shedding, once again, took its place. And … life went on.

2024: an election like no other

By the end of 2024, Johannesburg had no water; the Cape Town murder rate continued to be among the highest for any city on earth; Durban’s beaches were awash with sewage – and yet, at least for the middle classes, South Africa somehow still seemed like a pretty decent place to be by international standards. Little wonder that digital nomads from the US and Europe are flocking here in their droves.

As Russian nuclear threats had much of the northern hemisphere gripped by the kind of anxiety it hadn’t seen since the 1980s, and with governments teetering across western Europe as the centre failed to hold, South Africa in late 2024 was looking increasingly respectable.

A general election produced the most seismic political shift in three decades, and nobody stormed any buildings in response (although, admittedly, a former president continues to bleat that the polls were rigged). On a continent infamous for being unable to manage peaceful transitions of power, some measure of power was transferred perfectly peacefully. To the horror of extremists on both sides of the political spectrum, a centrist Government of National Unity (GNU) is in place.

Yes, there are cracks and tensions, being widened and stirred by provocateurs ranging from Panyaza Lesufi to Helen Zille. But South Africa ends 2024 with arguably the greatest political miracle in place since the peaceful transition of 1994: a functioning multiparty coalition getting on with the business of governing.

Local signs that extremism is failing

The final weeks of 2024 have seen two South African political parties seemingly try, and fail, to harness populist discontent in any kind of energetic way.

The sight of a tearful Julius Malema addressing a damp squib of an EFF elective conference in the second week of December was an indication of the kind of body blows his party has sustained this year: from losing its position as South Africa’s third-largest political party to Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe to the betrayal of its deputy leader, Floyd Shivambu, defecting to the MK party alongside other high-profile recruits.

Simultaneously in KwaZulu-Natal, meanwhile, the MK party’s first-anniversary celebrations were also playing out in a distinctly limp fashion, with traditional leaders boycotting the event and the expected mass crowds failing to materialise.

It is December, to be fair, the time of year when South Africans traditionally cannot be persuaded to do much more than party. But the MK party’s anniversary-celebrations flop should also be considered in the light of the party’s post-election trajectory, which has seen it notably fail in by-elections in areas considered strongholds. Those pushed out of the MK party through Zuma’s cronyism, such as the party’s original founder, Jabulani Khumalo, claim this is a sign that the electorate is wising up to the reality that the MK party is simply a vehicle for the Zuma family to regain political and economic control of the country.

It is too early to tell whether this is indeed the case, but it is certainly possible to say that the MK party, which says it would tear up the Constitution and embark on a mass nationalisation campaign if it came to power, has thus far failed to sustain the impetus its electoral debut suggested.

Illustrative image | From left: UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione. (Photo: Instagram screenshot) | Author Lebohang Masango. (Photo: YouTube screenshot) | Grant Wood's American Gothic. (Photo: Midjourney AI | A schoolgirl. (Photo: iStock) | SA President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: Gallo Images) | Tech billionaire Elon Musk. (Photo: Gallo Images) | US president-elect Donald Trump. (Photo: Gallo Images) 

Global social compact fraying as capitalism flails

Further afield this year, there were signs in many places that the status quo is unravelling at the edges.

In May, the hottest annual event in New York City took place: the annual Met Gala, at which celebrities compete to strut the red carpet in the edgiest possible outfits which would still win the approval of Vogue’s editor for life, Anna Wintour.

The Met Gala often attracts controversy because the display of wealth is so ostentatious. But this year the public response had an angrier, and darker, flavour than usual – in particular, fuelled by a TikTok video created by influencer Haley Kalil.

The clip saw Kalil, wearing what appeared to be a Marie Antoinette-inspired costume, imperiously swish her outfit while mouthing the words “Let them eat cake” – a quote often attributed to the famously out-of-touch last queen of France before the French Revolution. The video quickly went viral, with other social media users disapprovingly juxtaposing edits of Gaza being razed to the ground, and other scenes of poverty and devastation worldwide.

The staging of spectacles like the Met Gala, where elitism is celebrated so brazenly in a world riven by inequality, is becoming an increasingly high-risk venture for organisers. Kalil released a nine-minute apology video and today remains a major TikTok star. But the incident suggested something deeper: cracks in the edifice of the current capitalist system are widening.

Nothing made this clearer than the response, in December, to the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on the streets of midtown New York. Bullet casings found at the scene were carved with the words “deny”, “delay” and “depose” – reference to the techniques used by US medical insurance companies. Alleged shooter Luigi Mangione was found with a manifesto deploring the predatory business practices of “these parasites”.

In the days after the shooting, there was an outpouring of support for the shooter that transcended political lines and even nationality: pro-Mangione graffiti was photographed as far afield as Italy and Chile, countries which are unaffected by the US’s problematic healthcare system.

It did not hurt that Mangione was an attractive young man. But the speed at which his story took on the contours of a folk hero’s tale was revealing; many people, it would appear, were strongly in favour of a shot across the bows of CEO-dom.

Those in authority were clearly unnerved. A middle-aged Florida mother with no criminal record who told another medical aid company “Delay, deny, depose, you people are next” about a week after Thompson’s shooting was promptly arrested and a $100,000 bail penalty imposed. The judge hearing the matter said that the extortionate bail amount was necessary to send a message “considering the status of our country at this point”.

Yet this sense of growing class resentment is hardly limited to the US. Globally, there are signs that young people in particular are gatvol of the status quo. Research has consistently shown that Gen Zs are more distrustful of capitalism than any previous generation, and for good reason: the free markets are simply not working for them in the way they might have for the baby boomers, and many Gen Zs are not willing to prioritise work in the manner of previous generations when they are unlikely to reap the same rewards.

Against this background, many young people openly yearn to quit the workplace altogether. This year, two seemingly regressive models of female behaviour hit the headlines: “tradwives” and “soft girls”. The tradwife movement, now highly visible on American social media, presents a lifestyle throwback to the 1950s: apron-wearing women devoting their lives to cleaning, cooking, and caring for husbands and children. What older women might consider a form of drudgery from which the expansion of the labour market saved them has become aspirational to youngsters, paired with a rustic aesthetic and organic diet.

“Soft girls” is a trend reportedly taking off in Sweden, one of the most famously feminist places on Earth, where young women are celebrating quitting work in order to become stay-at-home girlfriends or wives. In South Africa, too, this ambition is increasingly openly discussed. Lebohang Masango’s 2022 book, The Soft Life: Love, choice and modern dating, asks the question: “Why live a life of drudgery and overwork when you can recline in the arms of your Prince Charming?” and advises young women to “Become more feminine and traditional”, and “Only date men with money”.

What this speaks to is probably less a rejection of feminism and more a rejection of contemporary work. It has evolved against a global backdrop of a deepening and worsening divide between the genders. A decade-long study by international research agency Glocalities has found that young women have grown increasingly liberal over the past decade, whereas the reverse political evolution is happening to young men, causing “a growing rift”.

An Ipsos survey in 31 countries released in March found that 60% of Gen Z men believe that women’s equality discriminates against men’s rights. These young men, raised steeped in the post-#MeToo online atmosphere of “all men are trash”, appear to be drifting rightwards in thrall to podcast bros such as Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, who vindicate their sense of alienation and fuel their resentment.

The same trend is observable in South Africa, where the biggest local podcast is Podcast and Chill with MacG. Host MacGyver Mukwevho hosts unabashedly sexist discussions to the apparent delight of his listeners; this was the platform on which DA leader John Steenhuisen infamously referred to his ex-wife as “roadkill”.

Rise of the podcasts as political tools

These podcasts are not simply entertainment for disaffected young men. This year has seen their entrenchment, in South Africa and elsewhere, as significant media tools for politicians.

It was to a local podcast that Zuma’s daughter Duduzile gave her most extensive interview this year, receiving a fawning reception from the hosts of The Shady PHodcast in an episode – streamed more than 100,000 times on YouTube alone – in which she was permitted to reshape her father’s political legacy without any pushback.

That these podcasts now offer real competition to legacy media can no longer be denied. Donald Trump’s appearance on the world’s biggest podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, in October reportedly had a significant impact in winning over swing voters. It probably did not hurt that Trump was permitted to tell at least 32 lies during that single appearance. Rogan’s interview with him received 26 million views in the first 24 hours. By contrast, CNN is now attracting only 398,000 viewers nightly.

As the year was closing out, the world witnessed the dispiriting spectacle of respected world leaders jostling for invitations on big podcasts. After Rogan claimed in late November that he had turned down an interview with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, rival podcast bro Lex Fridman extended an offer to Zelensky via X, which the president appeared to eagerly accept.

Some have applauded the “democratisation” of media, which extends beyond podcasts. At the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s local results centre in May this year, a new development was the number of media accreditations extended to non-legacy media: podcasters, YouTubers, TikTokers. At the Democratic National Convention in the US in August, more than 200 “content creators” were accredited to attend, seemingly on the basis of the vast youth audience they could attract.

“Traditional” journalists had gripes aplenty, about the loss of space and interview opportunities as a result. But more concerning, as CNBC noted, is that content creators “make no pretence of being politically nonpartisan, and they do not adhere to the traditional code of journalistic ethics”.

Neither does the mainstream media, many would respond. South Africans’ trust in news remained higher than in many places at 57% of polled respondents, as compared with the global average this year of 40%, according to the annual Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report. But the same report also found that South Africa had one of the highest rates in the world (81%) for worry about how to distinguish between trustworthy and untrustworthy content online. We have, in other words, a misinformation epidemic – one that is certain to be intensified by the explosion of generative AI.

The growing reliance of local students on ChatGPT as a cheating aid is now such a problem that South African academics tell me they are even getting invigilated, in-person exam answers which appear to have been generated by ChatGPT, possibly delivered through smartwatches in the exam venue. But the AI headaches for academia are likely to pale in comparison with the challenges that lie ahead for the media – and, by extension, to an informed electorate.

In September, it was revealed that a viral fake news story about US presidential candidate Kamala Harris had been entirely manufactured as part of a Russian disinformation campaign. The story, which was all over social media in the weeks running up to the US elections, claimed that Harris had left a 13-year-old immigrant girl paralysed in a hit-and-run car accident.

In order to produce the viral “news” clip, the Russian propagandists created a fake news studio, hired an actor to pose as the victim’s mother and packaged the story as emanating from a non-existent but plausible-sounding San Francisco television news outlet named KBSF-TV. The video was viewed millions of times and trended on X under the hashtag #HitAndRunKamala.

At this moment in time, the propagandists still needed to hire a real human to play the part of the victim’s mother. As AI video-generation capabilities improve, that will soon no longer be the case – and thus far, AI companies have shown little appetite to plough resources into developing what could soon become absolutely vital tools to reliably detect AI-generated content.

In this ever-more choppy sea of fake news and political propaganda, this was the year in which media outlets, including Daily Maverick, had to start properly devoting time to dedicated fact-checking.

X owner Elon Musk tweets almost daily to the platform’s users “You are the media now”, and has made no secret of the fact that he aims to drive legacy media out of business. Musk is going about this in various ways. One is by throttling traffic to news websites he dislikes, including The New York Times, which means there is a delay in accessing these websites from X, presumably leading to many users giving up.

Another method to lessen traffic to news sites, which Musk confirmed in November, is through X’s new practice of deprioritising tweets with links to external sites in order to keep them on X. In other words, X users are now much less likely to see tweets containing links to news articles.

In this way, little by little, the global electorate becomes less and less informed. It is hard not to link this current to the rise of right-wing sentiment in many Western countries, which is often fuelled by disinformation about migrants and multiculturalism.

At the time of writing, two major European governments – in France and Germany – had just collapsed within the same month. The US was roiled by the most intractable political divisions in decades. South Africa, in a world on fire, suddenly didn’t seem like the worst place in which to see out the end of the year. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.