Is South Africa Ready for a White President, asks Bhekisisa Mncube
OPINION
30 April 2025
In his recent opinion piece, News24 Editor-in-Chief Adriaan Basson posed the provocative question, "Is the DA ready to govern?" The central argument in Basson's article isn't merely speculative. I have closely examined both the Social Research Foundation report titled "South Africa's Political State of Play – February 2025 " and the South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR) document "Political State of Play as of f April 2025.". Despite differences in their error margins and methodological approaches, both reports reach a consistent conclusion: the African National Congress (ANC) is unmistakably on a downward spiral.
Basson may not have attended the recent funeral of ANC ideologue Nokuthula "MaFakazi" Mtshali, whose remains now rest in the overgrown Zandfontein Cemetery, north of Pretoria (I am informed the cemetery has since been partially cleared following my earlier article). It was here, well before the recent polls surfaced, that many of my contemporaries—former activists and freedom fighters—first raised concerns about the ANC's deteriorating performance in critical areas such as land reform, unemployment, declining living conditions in metropolitan cities, and the growing disconnect between ANC leadership and its traditional support base. Somehow, there’s a consensus that ANC, in its current incarnation, isn’t likely to reverse electoral losses.
We posited then, as I do now, that the Democratic Alliance (DA) would not necessarily need to win the 2029 election outright. Merely securing around 30 per cent of the national vote, surpassing the ANC, would suffice. This scenario could usher in a third Government of National Unity (GNU), helmed for the first time in post-apartheid South Africa by a representative of the DA—implicitly, a white man.
This is where it gets murky: Is South Africa ready for a white president like Geordin Hill-Lewis, the current executive mayor of Cape Town, who, based on Basson's prediction, could be a future contender for the top DA job? By all accounts, Hill-Lewis is a likeable fellow with a sunny disposition, and besides a slick PR machine, other metrics support the claim that Cape Town is the best-run city in South Africa. Nevertheless, significant criticisms persist. Rising property prices in Cape Town make it increasingly difficult for working-class residents to secure affordable housing near their places of employment, exacerbating spatial inequality. Indeed, housing shortages remain a nightmare in the Western Cape (DA-run), official waiting lists say more than 600,000 people are in line for a council house, with over 350,000 in Cape Town City alone. Cape Town sits with around 900 informal settlements, [with] around 180,000 households living in informality. Criticism frequently centres on the DA's perceived prioritisation of service delivery in predominantly affluent, traditionally white areas. However, according to the Auditor-General’s reports, Cape Town exhibits sound financial management (regular clean audits) and significantly lower corruption.
Nevertheless, the criticisms and limitations of DA governance in Cape Town and the Western Cape province are peripheral to the central debate about the future of our homeland, come 2029 general elections. Crucially absent from discussions about South Africa's political future—particularly the 2029 poll is whether the country has effectively resolved the National Question. The National Question involves more than racial considerations; it is fundamentally intertwined with class exploitation, identity, language, and culture issues. As the ANC intellectual heavyweight Pallo Jordan wrote in 2019, the National Question necessitates addressing both material conditions and psychological legacies of historical division. Jordan, referencing the ANC’s Strategy and Tactics adopted during the watershed Morogoro Conference in 1969, emphasised the necessity of abolishing the colonial status imposed on the Black majority. This abolition would transform them into full citizens with authority, legitimacy, and agency, thereby enabling them to rightfully establish and sustain a representative democratic government, achieving the ANC's longstanding objective: a non-racial, non-sexist and National Democratic Society.
Yet, the DA’s ideological stance on race and racial redress versus majority voters' and societal expectations adds another dimension to this debate. The party staunchly opposes race-based policies such as Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) and affirmative action, aligning with its classical liberal philosophy. However, the Black majority views these as components of apartheid redress aimed at addressing the proverbial National Question.
The unresolved National Question, beyond race, also encompasses class and gender dimensions. Thus, it becomes a cocktail that serves as an ever-present undercurrent in contemporary South African politics, frequently obscured by the more visible and urgent crises of rising inequality, poverty, and land hunger.
My wager is this: as long as the majority of Black people remain structurally excluded from the main table—whether in the economy on company boards, in senior management, or in decent jobs—the legitimacy of any government, no matter its composition, will remain fragile. For example, the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the third quarter of 2024 shows that most unemployed individuals (36.1%) are Black Africans, a figure higher than that of all other population groups.
Therefore, the issue of who governs and the posture they assume during campaigning will not necessarily determine who wins but rather who can form a new government and lead with legitimacy. My first thesis is that a DA-led national government is now within striking distance, but its legitimacy as a "liberator" or "messiah" is questionable. As such, we will most likely witness a democratically elected government, a hung parliament, and an executive (DA-led) lacking the moral authority to govern.
We, the commentariat, must also bear in mind that the ANC has not technically lost an election; instead, it has fragmented. If we add up the support of its various splinters in the 2024 general elections, it still commands nearly a two-thirds majority. This strongly suggests that most voters still want the National Question resolved. Taken together, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) holds 58 seats, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has 39, the United Democratic Movement (UDM) has 3, the ANC holds 159, and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) has one seat, amounting to a combined total of 260 seats. This represents 65 per cent of the 400-seat National Assembly, based on the 2024 election results alone—a compelling indication that the centre of political gravity in South Africa remains rooted in the unresolved aspirations of Black South Africans.
My second thesis centres on the outlier political lens through which the current ANC Deputy President, Paul Mashatile, leads the ANC into the 2029 general elections. I argue that he will be catapulted into the presidency even if the ANC secures only 30 per cent of the votes, as suggested by recent polls. He will be carried on the shoulders of the ANC splinter groups with one proviso: to exclude the DA from the government. Is this a desirable outcome for South Africa? I don't know. Are we ready for a white president? I doubt it. Do we need new approaches to politics, improving service delivery, addressing apartheid spatial planning, land hunger, and bringing dignity to informal settlement dwellers while also cleaning our cities and cemeteries? Yes. Can the New ANC, comprised of all its splinter groups, finally unite to govern, make a difference, and resolve the National Question? Or will the majority (read Black people) willingly and freely give state power away to the minority, namely a DA-led coalition? Only time will tell.
-Mncube is an award-winning storyteller.
Only add this text if there is no link to the article online and you want this text to live on your site.
Website by daniellehitchcock.me