South African President Cyril Ramaphosa looks on as he addresses new members of the African National Congress (ANC) during an election campaign ahead of the 2024 general elections, at the Nelson Mandela Community Youth Centre in Chatsworth township, north of Durban, on May 14, 2023.
The bodies of Nelson Mandela and other fallen heroes did not rise from their graves in outrage, as one ‘traditional healer’ had prophesied would happen, if the ‘party of Mandela’ failed at the hustings. But there was little ‘relief’ in the ranks of South Africa’s former sole ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), that that gruesome manifestation of ‘cosmic unhappiness’ was avoided.
There was nevertheless a good deal of actual and metaphorical wailing and hand-wringing among loyalists of the ‘the oldest liberation movement in Africa’ as results trickled in, showing that the ANC’s ‘liberation dividend’ at the voting both had had its day.
