{"id":3749,"date":"2019-05-27T22:24:07","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T22:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/?p=3749"},"modified":"2019-05-27T22:24:07","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T22:24:07","slug":"on-the-south-african-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/2019\/05\/27\/on-the-south-african-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"On the South African Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The 2019 South African elections were destined to be particularly interesting. They followed the resignation of the African National Congress’s President Zuma, and his replacement with Incumbent President Ramaphosa. The ANC has been the overwhelmingly dominant party in South Africa since the end of Apartheid, but corruption scandals on the highest levels are bound to hit any<\/em> party hard. The ANC’s primary goal was holding onto their majority, which they succeeded with their lowest share of the legislature in the modern government’s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the party that gained the ANC’s losses was not the opposition – the Democratic Alliance. In fact, the opposition also<\/em> lost seats, although it didn’t sustain as heavy losses. No, the ruling party’s lost seats were all claimed by smaller, third parties, including the nationalistic, federalist Inkataha Freedom Party, the nationalist-populist Freedom Front Plus, and – with the most gains – the communist Economic Freedom Fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are certain tensions at play within South Africa that these could be attributed to. Firstly, increased media access compared to previous elections could mean that scandals surfacing have an increased impact on public opinion. Secondly, resurgent racial tension played on by said media could be radicalizing the electorate, which would explain the rise in nationalist politics in the South African theater. Thirdly, pan-African movements are seeing many of their visions realized across the continent, as the African Union deploys pan-African passports, and several countries within the Union begin to enjoy free trade agreements as a result of their collaboration facilitated by the organization. This would help explain some of the rise of the EFF, as their politics tend pan-Africanist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite their historic losses, the ANC retains more than 57% of the seats in the legislature, and Ramaphosa secured the continuation of his term in office. However, the apparent polarization of South African politics, combined with the scandals within the party and the increasing economic and nationalistic tensions around the world, could lead to a future decline in the ANC’s power as the undisputed rulers of South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2019 South African elections were destined to be particularly interesting. They followed the resignation of the African National Congress’s President Zuma, and his replacement with Incumbent President Ramaphosa. The ANC has been the overwhelmingly dominant party in South Africa since the end of Apartheid, but corruption scandals on the highest levels are bound to hit any party hard. The… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-3749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3749"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3775,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749\/revisions\/3775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}