It’s Just Africa: Corruption Threatens Two Decades of Democracy in South Africa

For the first time in the 20 years since the end of apartheid in South Africa, riot police entered the National Assembly to break up a brawl that erupted between members of parliament (MPs) during the heated Nkandla debate. The police removed MPs from both opposition parties, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Democratic Alliance (DA), from the chamber, to the delight of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) MPs. The DA asked law-enforcement authorities on Monday to charge an ANC MP and the police with assault against four of its members. The opposition and critics of the ANC decried the forcible removal of opposition MPs as another instance of ANC’s blatant abuse of power. 

There are two factors at play that led directly to Thursday’s parliamentary brawl. The first is that the composition of the South African parliament is changing, with not only a greater representation of opposition parties, but also with stronger relationships developing between those opposition parties against the ANC. For the past two decades, the ANC has enjoyed essentially unchecked power in the parliament as well as majority support in eight of South Africa's nine provinces. Opposition parties were represented, but were unable to combine their power against the ruling party. The Western Cape province is the only one that has been and continues to be controlled by an opposition party (the DA).

In the face of the ongoing Nkandla scandal, South Africa’s opposition parties have found common ground to unite against the governing party with unexpected coordination and energy. In this year's elections, opposition parties took a greater percentage of the vote in all provinces, while the ANC lost a percentage of the vote in more than half of the provinces.