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n April 26, 1994, at a remote polling station in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, on a mission with the United Nations, I witnessed one of the most significant milestones of the 20th century: the election of African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela to South Africa’s presidency, ending the injustices of apartheid with the country’s first all-race election. 

Thirty years later, on May 29, 2024, as a member of an international election study tour on the outskirts of Pretoria, I observed a new generation of South Africans cast their votes. With no attachment to the liberation politics of the past, young voters were looking for a change of their circumstances, which too often include joblessness, crime, and the failure of government services such as electricity, health, and educational provisions. The electorate was responding to decades of greed and corruption by political leaders.  

The pre-election polls predicted a loss for the ANC, but the question remained by how much and which party would capture their vote share. With the ANC factionalized, the increasing popularity of new political parties, changing political alliances, and meddling by international actors such as Russia, China, and Iran, no one could predict how the country would respond to the ANC losing its majority.  

The 2024 elections, like those of 1994, were historic and consequential in their own right. In many ways, they demonstrated that a culture of democracy has become embedded in South Africa. In the end, there was no doomsday scenario; South Africa met the moment. President Cyril Ramaphosa of the ANC and John Steenhuisen of the Democratic Alliance (DA) put aside their ideological differences and formed the Government of National Unity (GNU). They grounded their coalition in respect for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the rule of law.  

Six months in, the GNU’s democratic center is holding, buoyed by investment optimism and the appreciation of South Africa’s currency to new heights. However, in matters of foreign policy, real rifts are emerging. The pull of geopolitical alignments is straining the GNU coalition. Emma Powell, the DA’s spokesperson on international relations, suggests that the ideological fault lines in the unity government need to be mediated and a form of reconciliation found so the country can be consistent in its policy of non-alignment. 

The GNU remains a fragile governing coalition, and more effort is needed to provide real change for South Africans. Coercive diplomacy, which threatens trade preferences and isolation, should be set aside for more precise US engagements that strengthen the constitutional center of the governing coalition, support private sector-led economic growth, and blunt the interventions of international actors supporting divisive politics that would most certainly lead to the GNU’s collapse.