What Next For South Africa After Seismic Election?

For the past three decades, South African politics has been defined by the African National Congress. After taking power under Nelson Mandela in the first multiracial elections in 1994, the movement shaped the nation’s new identity, dismantling discriminatory laws, extending basic services across color lines and opening up the mainstream economy to the Black majority.

But faced with rampant poverty, mass unemployment, power cuts and endemic crime and corruption, South Africans have run out of patience with the ANC. The party hemorrhaged support in May 29 elections and lost its parliamentary majority for the first time by a substantial margin.