From The Economist

The mighty African National Congress (ANC), which has held sway since South Africa held its first democratic elections two decades ago, is a wounded giant. A realignment of post-apartheid politics, long predicted but always delayed, now seems plausible as the ANC faces the prospect of splits within and erosion from without. The process is being hastened by the faltering president, Jacob Zuma, who is threatened with yet another round of scrutiny over allegations of corruption going back to an arms deal in 1997.

With the economy stalled, the ANC is being squeezed on the populist left and the liberal right. To the left, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), founded last year by Julius Malema, a firebrand who used to head the ANC’s Youth League, is gaining ground after winning 6 percent of the votes in a general election in May; its 25 members of parliament, often clad in red overalls and berets intended to signify their solidarity with workers, seem to hog the headlines. The EFF appeals, too, to young middle-class nationalists fed up with the ANC. Splinter groups in South Africa have often risen and then faded. But Frans Cronje, who runs the South African Institute of Race Relations, a think-tank, says: “There’s huge sympathy for the EFF within the ANC.”

Read more at The Economist