In late May, when I arrived in Johannesburg for the second session of my tertianship, the final stage of Jesuit formation, the power had been on continuously for 55 days. When I was there at the same time last year, there had been electricity outages (“loadshedding,” in South African parlance) for at least a few hours each day. While I expected the locals to be relieved by the steadier service this year, almost everyone I spoke to about it had the same response: It’s just for the election. Don’t get used to it.
South Africa was preparing for national elections, held once every five years, on May 29, 2024. This was the first election since the end of apartheid in 1994 in which it seemed likely that the African National Congress would not win an absolute majority—and indeed it did not, leading to the formation of a coalition “government of national unity.”
Loadshedding was widely understood as a problem of corruption at the state-owned electric utility: underinvestment in basic maintenance, theft of supplies as basic as copper cabling and incompetent political appointees more interested in their own status than in fixing problems. There was a long history of the A.N.C. patching things up, even just filling potholes, during each campaign to mollify voters enough to return the party to power for a few more years. Following an understandable “fool me once” logic, many of the people I met were unwilling to trust that this time was any different.
The multiyear electricity crisis certainly contributed to the A.N.C.’s loss of its majority, but broader concerns about corruption and economic malaise were also in play. And a new player had emerged in the months just before the election: the populist party uMkhonto weSizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), referred to as M.K., named after the military wing of the A.N.C. during the struggle against apartheid. Largely a personal vehicle for former president Jacob Zuma, who could not officially stand to serve in Parliament due to a conviction related to corruption charges, it took almost 15 percent of the vote, coming in third after the A.N.C.’s 40 percent and about 22 percent for the Democratic Alliance (D.A.), which had long been the official opposition to the A.N.C.’s government.
In the days following the election, there were fears of violence. M.K. made vague assertions, without evidence, about election irregularities and warned South Africa’s well-respected independent elections body about “starting trouble.” In 2021, when Mr. Zuma had been imprisoned after being convicted of contempt of court for refusing to participate in a corruption inquiry, the province of KwaZulu-Natal, his stronghold, was rocked by riots that resulted in more than 300 deaths.
Despite these fears, violence did not ensue in 2024. Instead, the country waited while the A.N.C. deliberated about whether to cooperate with the D.A.—generally seen as its longtime rival, ideological and economic opposite, and the “white party” racially—or to forge an alliance with M.K. and another radical populist party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, both of which were threatening reforms which would abandon significant commitments of South Africa's landmark post-apartheid constitution.
Eventually, about two weeks after the election, the outlines of a government of national unity emerged. The A.N.C. and D.A. were the major players, along with the Inkatha Freedom Party and seven other much smaller parties. Neither the negotiations for the coalition nor the months following it were completely smooth. Arms were twisted and backroom deals made; politicians and parties finessed campaign pledges and accepted compromises they had previously ruled out.
But the government formed and continues to muddle through, a messy, conflicted and partial unity but a unity nonetheless. The “art of the possible” is being performed in real time and without script or rehearsal. And—at least for now—the power is still on in South Africa, three months past the election and counting.
While I think South Africa’s example of messy and imperfect compromise is an example Americans could and should learn from, that does not mean it should be the limit of our aspirations for politics.
In Johannesburg, I visited Constitution Hill, the home of South Africa’s highest court. It is built on the site of an old fort, later used as a prison, which held both regular prisoners and political detainees arrested for protesting the government, both before and during apartheid. Both Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela were held there, in detestable and inhumane conditions.
Half the complex has been preserved as a museum. But the “awaiting trial” wing of the prison was torn down, and its bricks were used to build the new courthouse, whose doors are carved with the 27 fundamental rights enshrined in South Africa’s constitution. We should not hope for perfection from politics or politicians, but when they show us a glimpse of something that points the way toward “more perfect union,” we ought to pay close and grateful attention.
