ANC veteran Mathews Phosa has predicted that the ANC could fall to as low as 26% nationally in future elections, warning that the governing party’s decline is accelerating as corruption scandals, leadership failures and voter disillusionment continue to erode public trust.
Speaking during the Brutally Honest Conversations with Sunday World podcast, Phosa said polling trends showed the ANC was steadily losing electoral ground and could no longer expect to dominate South African politics as it once did.
“The ANC is definitely losing elections,” said Phosa. “The electoral vote of the previous election, put at 40%, which I predicted would be 44%, was out by three. I’m saying now, from the polls we’re doing, the ANC is between 26 and 36. It is losing the vote.”
ANC problems self-inflicted
His comments amount to one of the starkest warnings yet from a senior ANC elder about the future of the governing party, which dropped below 50% nationally for the first time in the 2024 general elections and was forced into a government of national unity (GNU).
Phosa said the ANC’s problems were largely self-inflicted and linked directly to corruption, poor leadership and the collapse of ethical standards within the organisation.
“The ANC was punished. People voted with their feet,” he said. “It was punished because of the perception of corruption and criminality in the party. Those are perceptions, and in many ways they are realities.”
The former ANC treasurer-general said corruption scandals had damaged the party’s image to the point where clean leaders inside the organisation were now overshadowed by those implicated in wrongdoing.
“ANC members who have misbehaved have given the ANC a bad smell, a bad, bad taste,” he said.
Phosa linked the decline of the ANC to what he described as a long-term erosion of morality and ethical leadership within both the party and the state.
“We have a situation where there’s so much corruption,” he said. “We are governed by commissions of inquiry one after the other. What is lacking is implementation.”
National alternative non-existent
He said South Africans had become increasingly frustrated by endless investigations without visible accountability, while corruption allegations continued to engulf senior political and law enforcement figures.
“It’s scary,” he said. “You can have people who are in charge of law enforcement who are committing crimes or colluding with criminals and eating from the same dish with criminals.”
Despite the ANC’s decline, Phosa said opposition parties had also failed to present a convincing national alternative.
He argued that both the EFF and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party were drawing support from the same voter base and effectively “cannibalising” each other.
“MK and EFF are fishing from the same pond and cannibalising one another,” he said. “They’re not growing.”
Phosa also described the MK Party as too regionalised to emerge as a dominant national force.
“For me, the problem is too localised. It’s a regional party,” he said.
Instead, he predicted that South Africa was entering a long-term era of coalition politics in which no single party would dominate outright.
“The scenario that’s emerging is another government of national unity,” he said. “Either left or right, but it will be another GNU. The ANC is not going to dominate the political space.”
Phosa said the ANC could still recover if it embraced merit-based leadership and confronted corruption decisively.
ANC battling credibility crisis
He criticised populism within the party and said leadership positions should be based on competence rather than loyalty or factional alignment.
“Who wants to be led by a fool?” he asked. “People must be able to lead and must prove it.”
The veteran politician also proposed drastic internal reforms, including dissolving ANC branches and rebuilding them from scratch in order to cleanse the organisation.
“The ANC can be rescued if there’s a willingness to clean it,” he said.
But he acknowledged that the governing party faced a severe credibility crisis ahead of future elections, particularly as corruption scandals and economic frustrations continued to dominate public discourse.
“The ANC is in government, and if the economy is not growing, it must take responsibility for that,” he said.
Still, Phosa warned against political despair and said South Africa retained enough democratic and institutional strength to avoid collapse.
“We must grow the economy, create jobs and stop crime,” he said. “This is our country. We must build it.”
- ANC veteran Mathews Phosa warned the ANC's national vote share could decline to between 26% and 36% due to corruption, leadership failures, and voter disillusionment, marking an accelerated party decline.
- Phosa attributed the ANC’s drop below 50% in the 2024 elections to self-inflicted problems like widespread corruption and ethical collapse, causing loss of public trust and internal reputational damage.
- He highlighted the lack of a strong opposition alternative, citing EFF and the regional uMkhonto weSizwe Party as competing for the same voter base without substantial growth.
- Phosa predicted long-term coalition governments as no party, including the ANC, will dominate South African politics soon, advocating for merit-based leadership and internal reforms to revive the ANC.
- Despite the crisis, Phosa remains hopeful about South Africa’s democratic resilience and urges focus on economic growth, job creation, and crime reduction to rebuild the nation.
