In a roseate African dusk a skinny teenager ignores the sliding pitch of the lark’s incessant call and shoulders a Mauser Model 1895 rifle. He squints down the crude iron sights, imagines himself to be Yevgeny Maximov and, between heartbeats as his grandfather has taught him, squeezes the trigger. The antique weapon bucks and roars in his hands leaving a choking cloud of white smoke and a ringing noise in his ears.

The boy shoulders the rifle and calmly awaits his chastisement. He has already won.

Between the ages of 5 and 21 I spent almost every Christmas on my grandfather’s farm close to the town of Laingsburg in the Central Karoo. In those last decades of apartheid nothing seemed to change and the town remained a sun faded and fading reflection of post-war Europe. Returning to the area after 30 years I am struck by how little has yet changed, both economically and culturally. Progress, for South Africans, appears to be something that happens to other people.

The reasons for this economic stagnation are manifold, complex and essentially quite boring though poor governance and corruption lay at the heart of it. Every South African government since 1994 has placed the unity of the sprawling and fractious ANC caucus over attempts to advance an anti-corruption agenda with any gravity. They are abetted in this calumny by South Africa’s closed list electoral system which seems to be a perfectly forged instrument for enabling patronage and grift.

Despite this long-standing legacy of mis-rule the ANC have been rewarded by the voters with decades of electoral dominance. However, as we head into the 2024 elections their supremacy is under threat as never before.

The challenge does not come from the opposition Democratic Alliance, who struggle to gain electoral relevance outside their redoubt of the Western Cape, but from factions within the ANC and groups that fractured from it. Foremost of these is Malema’s Marxist-Fanonist construction, EFF, which makes inroads to the ANC vote from the left and particularly among younger people.

In the 2024 election the ANC will also be assailed by the newly formed MK party which bears the imprimatur of the kleptomanic butternut and former president Jacob Zuma. The disendorsement of the ANC by Zuma will have a lot of influence with the RET faction of the party and could suppress turnout.

So is incumbent president Cyril “Cupcake” Ramaphosa in trouble? Yes, in a very particular set of circumstances, but otherwise, no.

Despite endemic corruption, state capture by criminal interests, collapse of the criminal justice system and massive disruption to the country’s energy infrastructure the ANC remain relatively popular and Cupcake should be the short odds favourite to retain the presidency.

However, should the ANC fall short of the necessary 201 seats then there is only one viable coalition which is ANC+EFF. This coalition is only feasible if Ramaphosa and Mbalula leave, elevating somebody whom Malema can work with such as Paul Mashatile. This is the scenario of maximum peril which would probably doom Cupcake’s presidency.

Malema’s price for a coalition would be high. He diagnoses part of the problem of South Africa as the continuation of White Monopoly Capitalism by the ANC would demand widespread nationalisation of banks, farms and mines.

In a fascinating coda, this hypothetical stridently left wing administration would immediately face a new challenge. Having seen how Brexit healed a fractured country and blessed it with untrammelled economic and social development, the people of the Western Cape are toying with the concept of Capexit. The latest polling shows 68% in favour of a referendum and 58% in favour of independence for the Western Cape.

Dura Ace

Dura Ace is a pb.com regular of Irish and South African parentage. He no longer has the Mauser.