South Africa's Unity Coalition Falters as ANC Support Sinks to 34 Percent

South Africa’s Government of National Unity, formed two years ago between the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance, has not held together politically. The ANC’s national polling has fallen to 34.0%, down sharply from 40.0% earlier in 2026 and sitting only two percentage points above its post-2025 VAT-crisis low. The coalition has delivered neither stability nor a recovery in support for either partner.

The numbers in the major cities are worse. In Johannesburg, where the ANC operates an alternative arrangement in practice with the Economic Freedom Fighters and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, ANC support has collapsed to under 20%. In eThekwini it polls at a similar level. In Tshwane it sits just above 30%. The DA holds steady at 27.0% nationally, the MKP has risen to 15.0%, and the EFF remains flat at 7.0%. To take control in Johannesburg and Tshwane, the DA would need to close gaps of seven to eight percentage points. No clear path exists to do that.

Metropolitan councils across the country are trending toward hung administrations. The political system is increasingly unable to produce working majorities at any level of government.

Yet which coalition holds power matters far less than what those coalitions actually deliver. The fundamental problem is economic. South Africa’s investment rate and growth rate remain too low to generate meaningful job creation. The living standards gains and employment expansion that characterized the country’s first fifteen years after 1994 have reversed, undoing the political foundation on which the ANC built its 70.0% vote share in 2004. That structural decline explains the party’s long-term erosion more than any single scandal or policy failure.

Two acute pressures now accelerate that decline. The first is the Phala Phala affair. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s reputation has been severely damaged by the scandal and the steady stream of revelations before the Madlanga Commission. Polling shows that 44.0% of likely voters believe he is guilty of a crime, compared to only 12.0% who believe he is innocent. Even among ANC voters, 37% believe he is guilty versus 29% who believe he is innocent. Around 80.0% of South Africans believe that if found guilty, whether by Parliament or a court, he should be removed from office. These are devastating numbers for a party whose recovery strategy rested on Ramaphosa as a symbol of reform and a break from the Zuma era.

The second pressure is immigration. Public concern over migration has risen sharply, with around two thirds of voters believing both that foreigners are responsible for high unemployment and that communities have the right to expel migrants. Parties that have campaigned prominently on migration appear to be gaining support. The ANC finds itself caught between growing public anger and its own inability to respond decisively.

These two pressures reinforce each other in ways that prevent the ANC from reversing either perception. Phala Phala has eroded the distinction many voters once drew between Ramaphosa and former President Jacob Zuma; increasingly, voters view both as corrupt. The ANC has no credible answer on jobs because it resists the reforms necessary to raise investment and growth rates. It has no answer on migration because expelling migrants is neither politically feasible nor would it address the underlying jobs problem. Restoring confidence on Phala Phala would require Ramaphosa to testify publicly, but cross-examination would likely worsen his position. Addressing migration anger requires faster economic growth, yet the party remains resistant to the reforms that would achieve it.

There is persistent speculation about an orchestrated “third-force” campaign designed to squeeze the ANC simultaneously on both fronts. To the extent this is occurring, it is proving effective in accelerating the party’s decline.

Meanwhile, the debate over coalition structure has become circular. Advocates for the ANC/DA arrangement argue the latest data demonstrate the importance of consolidating that agreement, even though polling shows the coalition has done little to hold or lift the combined support of both parties relative to what they won collectively in May 2024. Those who favor the ANC/MK/EFF arrangement point to the same data as vindication of their alternative, even though in Johannesburg, where that coalition operates, ANC losses have been the steepest.

What the data actually demonstrate is that coalition structure is secondary to performance. Without reforms that raise the investment rate and therefore the growth rate, job creation will not accelerate. In that environment, populist frustrations will continue to rise, and the question facing South Africa is not which coalition governs but whether any coalition can govern effectively enough to arrest the fragmentation before it becomes permanent.