A Decade of Consolidation and Crisis: The ANC’s Turbulent 2000-2010
South Africa’s citizens entered the 21st century with a governing party that held commanding electoral majorities but was increasingly tested by internal fractures, corruption scandals, and leadership battles that would reshape public life across the decade. The African National Congress maintained its dominance at the polls, yet the costs to public trust and institutional integrity were substantial.
The decade opened with President Thabo Mbeki steering the country’s response to the HIV/AIDS crisis while positioning South Africa as a continental diplomatic force, brokering peace talks in Burundi and Tanzania and engaging Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe over land reform. These were matters of direct consequence for millions of South Africans and the region’s broader population. By decade’s end, however, the party had experienced a rupture severe enough to force Mbeki’s recall and resignation in 2008.
The human scale of that rupture was immediate. Eleven cabinet ministers and several deputy ministers resigned from government in September 2008, leaving key public offices in flux. Some of those who departed later founded the Congress of the People (COPE), creating a new political option for voters dissatisfied with the ANC. Kgalema Motlanthe stepped in as state president for six months before Jacob Zuma won the 2009 elections and took office in May of that year.
Meanwhile, the traditional opposition underwent its own transformation. The New National Party disbanded during this period, and its leader, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, joined the ANC and became a cabinet minister, signaling a significant realignment in the choices available to South African voters.
What changed most visibly for the public, though, was the steady accumulation of corruption scandals touching the institutions citizens depend on. The Arms Deal, a multibillion-rand procurement arrangement, generated corruption charges against senior ANC figures including Tony Yengeni, convicted of fraud in 2003 and sentenced to four years in prison. Businessman Schabir Shaik was convicted of corruption and fraud in 2005, a verdict that led directly to Jacob Zuma’s removal as Deputy President. Allegations of misuse of parliamentary travel vouchers, known as Travelgate, resulted in the conviction of multiple ANC members of parliament. Oilgate implicated further party members in financial wrongdoing.
The reach of these failures extended into public safety. Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, the official entrusted with the country’s law enforcement, was arrested in 2007 on corruption charges and sentenced in 2009 to fifteen years in prison for accepting bribes to overlook drug trafficking. Police Commissioner Bheki Cele was found to have improperly authorized the lease of a Pretoria building at inflated prices, breaching constitutional and financial management rules. For ordinary South Africans, these were not abstract governance failures; they were failures at the heart of institutions meant to protect them.
Questions about political influence over public life deepened by 2010, when the Mail and Guardian newspaper first reported concerns about the growing sway of the Gupta family, a business network with close ties to President Zuma, over government and state-owned enterprises. The Guptas launched The New Age newspaper, which promised to report positively on the government, raising pointed questions about media independence and the public’s right to impartial information.
Internal discipline within the ANC also frayed in ways that drew public attention. Youth League leader Julius Malema drew complaints for leading students in singing an apartheid-era song with violent lyrics directed at white farmers. President Zuma eventually rebuked Malema publicly for conduct that diverged from official policy. By 2010 and 2011, the ANC had charged Malema and other Youth League officials with sowing divisions and bringing the party into disrepute; Malema was suspended for five years.
Violence shadowed parts of the decade in ways that struck at civic safety and accountability. Several ANC members and officials died under suspicious circumstances. Jimmy Mohlala, a municipal speaker, was killed in 2009. James Nkambule, a whistleblower who alleged politically motivated murders, was poisoned in 2010. Dumisani Ntshangase, a Communist Party member who had spoken out against corruption, was shot dead in 2010 after exposing an unpopular municipal decision. These deaths underscored the risks faced by those who sought to hold power to account.
At the ballot box, the ANC’s dominance held but showed signs of strain. The party secured 69.69 percent of the vote in 2004 and 66.3 percent in the 2006 local government elections. By the 2009 national elections, its share had declined to 65.9 percent, with the Democratic Alliance capturing 16.6 percent. The erosion was modest but measurable, reflecting a public that was watching closely.
The decade also brought the deaths of liberation struggle veterans Walter Sisulu in 2003, Govan Mbeki in 2001, and Joe Modise, the former defense minister and MK commander. Their passing marked the close of a founding generation and deepened the question of what kind of institution the ANC was becoming.
By 2010, the party remained the dominant force in South African politics, but the decade had left citizens with harder questions about governance, accountability, and whether the institutions built to serve the public were being protected or eroded. Whether the ANC could answer those questions in the years ahead remained genuinely open.