In May 2024, Africa and the rest of the world were stunned when the ANC lost its parliamentary majority after three decades of governing South Africa.
Though signs had been there that the party could lose Gauteng, the nerve centre of the national and regional economy, and would probably lose KwaZulu-Natal, which had been marked by political instability, no-one could have predicted the extent of the bloodbath.
The ANC, which had received 57.5% in the previous general election five years before, was hammered, losing more than 17% of electoral support to end with 40.18% of the vote nationally.
Support at provincial level also declined dramatically, with the party being forced into governments of provincial unity with other parties to maintain a semblance of power.
Even provinces that had historically been ANC strongholds such as the Northern Cape are now governed through these arrangements.
It was a shocking election that has redefined the future of our country.
Just a few months later, in November, an identical script played out in neighbouring Botswana, where the election saw the end of 58 years of single-party governance by the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which had been in power since 1966.
The Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) took power.
So severe was the bloodbath in Botswana that the BDP could not even garner enough votes to become the official opposition.
This honour went to the Botswana Congress Party (BCP), with the BDP becoming only the fourth- largest party in parliament.
Elsewhere in the Sadc region, other former national liberation movements are also in a difficult situation.
Over the past few weeks, Mozambique has been in the throes of violent post-election protests.
The protests were sparked by allegations of rigging directed at the ruling party, Frelimo, which has been in power since 1975.
Even before the results were announced, opposition parties claimed fraud, accusing Frelimo of ballot stuffing, manipulating voter lists and staffing polling stations with officials loyal to it.
International observer teams have said there were irregularities in the election, including the altering of some results.
According to Mozambican media reports, the Constitutional Council, the supreme body for election law, has asked the commission that ran the election to explain discrepancies.
Other countries in the region are heading for elections over the coming few weeks.
In Namibia, the South West People’s Organisation (Swapo), which has been in power since independence in 1990, is facing its toughest election yet.
The party lost its two-thirds majority in parliament in the previous election, and was re-elected with only 56% of the vote — down from 87% in the 2014 poll.
Swapo’s downward trend was confirmed by a dramatic decline in support in the regional and local elections in 2020.
Many analysts say the former national liberation movement is unlikely to retain power.
The same is being predicted about Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in Tanzania, where elections are also scheduled for this month.
The CCM, which has been ruling Tanzania since independence in 1961, has long been accused of rigging elections.
There has also been widespread violence directed at opposition leaders, with the most recent incident being the assault on Aisha Machano, a senior Chadema party official who was abducted, beaten and left in a forest a few weeks ago.
In Zimbabwe, Zanu-PF has maintained its hold on power through the same tactics of election rigging and the use of violence.
The sun is setting on former national liberation movements.
There are many explanations for why this is happening, one of them being the internal challenges that the organisations are confronted with, including but not limited to corruption and nepotism, all of which result in poor service delivery.
But external issues are also at play, including the global shift to the right that is resulting in the entrenchment of neoliberalism in all its manifestations.
Whether the demise of former national liberation movements will change the lives of ordinary people is yet to be seen.
But what is clear is that people have reached their limits with them.
HeraldLIVE
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