Ah, Chief Dwasaho! My leader, I survived a tsunami this week. Finding a small, trembling window to reach the mainland took half my sleeping time.
It was the most disturbing dream I have had so far in 2025. A cruel messenger of subconscious fears, it reminded me of the political apocalypse that engulfed the “leader of society”, the African National Congress (ANC), on 29 May 2024.
For me, emerging unscathed from a tsunami in the dreamworld signals an imminent breakthrough. Yet, in the treacherous world of South African politics, it whispers something darker: survival will only come through rebirth – a far more advanced stage in political survival than the tired mantra of “renewal” so lazily mouthed by comrades from podiums and WhatsApp groups alike.
You see, my leader, fictional renewal is easy. It only requires slogans, Instagram-ready images and conference resolutions that gather dust before the ink dries.
Real rebirth? That is different. It is messy, bloody and humbling. It is about scraping the rot from the marrow, reconnecting not with conference delegates and caterers but with street committees, stokvels, minibus taxi ranks, informal traders and, yes, the tired grandmothers queuing for social grants.
Without this brutal honesty, the ANC faces oblivion, not mere opposition. My dream, strange as it was, is your warning. My late, unlikeable father once barked at my younger sister: “Take it or leave. If you take the leave it, ku-worse (sic).”
But let us consult the oracle of real-world data. Poll after poll – whether from the Social Research Foundation (SRF) report titled “South Africa's Political State of Play” (February 2025), or the South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR) one, “The Political State of Play”, of April 2025 – sings the same dirge: the ANC is unmistakably on a downward spiral.
The 2024 election confirmed it: 40.18% of the national vote. In essence, the ANC lost 5,191,065 votes between 2009 and 2024. Clearly, the centre is no longer holding.
The SRF’s study, based on a demographically representative survey of 1,004 registered voters with a margin of error of 4%, revealed a critical shift. Many within the ANC’s traditional support base (on top of the missing five million already) have drifted into the category of “free agents”. Disillusioned and uncertain, they are no longer anchored to the once-mighty liberation movement.
Further confirmation came when the IRR’s national poll, conducted among 807 registered voters, delivered a political shockwave. The DA edged ahead nationally for the first time in IRR polling history, scoring 30.3% support, while the ANC languished at 29.7%.
This decline sharpened amid growing anger at ANC government performance, from sewage spills, to water shortages and land hunger.
Opportunistically or strategically, the DA opposes everything the ANC does in the GNU era through the courts. Polls show support for the party among black South Africans surged from 5.4% in 2024 to 18% in April 2025 – a bitter pill for Luthuli House. Thus, the oracle offers you four post-Cyril scenarios. Each dark. Each plausible.
Scenario One: DA-led 3rd GNU and the spectre of legitimacy
The first path, painted boldly by SRF and IRR polling, leads us to an historic yet volatile moment – a DA-led national government emerging from the ruins of ANC hegemony.
The maths now makes this plausible. With the ANC’s urban strongholds crumbling and its middle-class vote deserting, the DA – armed with only 30% of the national vote and shrewd coalition arithmetic – could form a government. In a cruel twist of irony, the ANC would become a junior partner in a house it once owned.
Enter stage right: possibly Geordin Hill-Lewis, the Cape Town mayor with a clean audit and a dazzling smile. A white president, my leader. Yes, in name and hue. While the Constitution allows it, society may not.
Hill-Lewis, or someone like him, would inherit a divided land where the National Question – unresolved and raw – simmers beneath service delivery protests, shack fires and whispered discontent.
His government would be legal, yes, but legitimate? Not in the townships or rural heartlands. Not in the eyes of those still knocking at the doors of economic power. His presidency would be haunted by whispers of betrayal – a government by arithmetic, not by heart.
Scenario Two: ANC phoenix, reborn in exile from the DA
The second path is no less dramatic. Enter Paul Mashatile, the seasoned survivor, chess player and deputy president who knows the art of political theatrics.
Polls suggest that even a humbled ANC scraping together 30% of the vote in 2029 could stitch together what I call the “New ANC” – an uneasy but potent alliance of splinter groups and leftist forces, united by one doctrine: Never DA.
Imagine, if you will, the ANC, uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), United Democratic Movement (UDM) and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) locking arms in ideological discomfort but political necessity.
Mashatile, catapulted to the presidency not by an overwhelming mandate but by wounded egos, would face a poisoned chalice: unite fractured liberation movements, govern ethically (for once) and deliver transformation.
It’s a big ask, my leader. Populists, nationalists and working-class rage do not always hold hands in harmony.
Markets, those unforgiving judges, would panic. The rand would tumble. The JSE would reel. Bond yields would spike. This government, burdened by ideological contradictions, would be unstable.
Yet, for many, this reborn ANC would at least feel like home. To them, governance without the ANC is governance without representation. Beware, my leader: unrest would no longer be theoretical.
Scenario Three: DA-led GNU excludes ANC – a nation unmoored
Now, my leader, allow me to play the oracle again and paint a chilling vision. Imagine a dawn where the DA, emboldened by steady electoral gains and embittered by ideological disdain, forms a third GNU that deliberately excludes the ANC. Constitutionally sound? Yes. Politically seismic? Absolutely.
The ANC, long regarded as the liberator and custodian of democratic South Africa, finds itself banished. The ramifications would not wait for the historians. Protests would erupt in forgotten townships and rural enclaves where the ANC’s absence from power would be felt as a betrayal of the liberation promise.
The presence of a white president – a plausible outcome – would fuel the fire. For many, especially among older generations, this would be perceived not as a new dawn but as a regression to pre-1994 politics. Old wounds would reopen.
This would not be the third GNU, but revenge wrapped in legalese for some.
Scenario Four: the outlier – MK storms to 35%
Ah, my leader, history does not whisper. Sometimes it roars. In this case, it hollered through the ballot box. The MK party – dismissed by analysts as a glorified WhatsApp group – has rewritten the rules.
At 35%, it towers over the humbled ANC and a sulking DA, seizing not just power but the narrative itself. They are no longer insurgents. They are governors. And with victory, they summon the so-called “progressive” forces to the big table: the EFF, African Transformation Movement (ATM) and United Africans Transformation (UAT).
Other smaller left-leaning parties in fiery rhetoric, community-based movements and ideologically untethered independents, follow suit. The third GNU, my leader, is formed, but not in the mould of 1994’s rainbow.
This is the Bloc of the Betrayed, united not by shared values but by shared vengeance. Land, wealth and ownership – the holy trinity of historical grievance – are now official government business. Both the ANC and DA are excluded and cry themselves to sleep in Parliament.
Read more: Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu: GNU – No Value Added
The markets recoil in horror. Overnight, the rand behaves like a novice skater on black ice. The JSE? A sea of red, the colour of ideological passion but also investor panic. Bond yields surge as global fund managers book urgent flights home. You see, my leader, the so-called progressive politics may win votes, but rarely soothes stockbrokers.
The new third GNU wastes no time. Land expropriation without compensation is not debated, it is declared. State-owned enterprises, once cursed by the DA as bottomless pits, are hailed as engines of national pride and earmarked for expansion – efficiency be damned. Talks emerge of new sovereign wealth funds, funded not by surplus but by dreams.
Till next week, my man – send me again. Let’s try this governance thingy properly, shall we? DM