South Africa

Three decades of ANC rule in South Africa look set to end. The final votes from Wednesday’s election have yet to be counted and are expected to be announced on Sunday. But the general consensus is that the party that ended apartheid will garner about 45 percent of the vote. Which means it is coalition time.

The downfall of the ANC vote is evidence of the well-worn political truism that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. In 2004 the African National Congress won 70 percent of the vote. It dropped to 57 percent in 2019 and is projected to drop between 10 and 15 points in this election.

The reason for the collapse of the ANC vote is corruption, poor governance and economic mismanagement leading to a flight of capital and an unemployment rate of 37 percent.

Corruption reached its peak under the presidency of Jacob Zuma whose misuse of government funds led to his ousting in 2018. In 2020 he was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment for contempt of court. He served only three, but he is still barred from serving in parliament.

Zuma’s successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, made some progress towards resolving the corruption problem, but it was too little too late> Unemployment – especially among the urban youth – remains troublingly high. Zuma, in the meantime has emerged as leader of a new KwaZulu Natal-based political party, Umkhonto we Size (MK) or Spear of the Nation.

MK has surprised political pundits by beating the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to take third place in the polls. Both the EFF and MK have adopted radical agendas which include the expropriation of white-owned land and widespread nationalisation. MK also wants to return more political power to the traditional trial chieftains.

MK took votes away from both the ANC and EFF. Another winner from this week’s was the Democratic Alliance (DA) who appear to have won the confidence the white South African voter. A fifth party is the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) is—like MK– also based in Natal. The most likely coalition is between the IFP, Democratic Alliance and ANC.

Europe

Europe’s far-right parties appear set to sweep the boards in European Parliament elections held on 6-9 June.

Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy are on the rise. Marine Le Pen is current favourite to win the 2027 and her National Rally party is currently at 30 percent in the opinion polls. Viktor Orban’s Fidesz has a stranglehold on Hungary and Geert Wilder’s Party for Freedom won elections in the Netherlands. Far-right parties, in Spain, Belgium, Slovakia, Sweden and Austria are growing or having a stake in government.

There is, however, a chink, in the far-right armour: Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland (Afd) has swung too far to the right even for Europe’s far-right. Recently, there top candidate for the European Parliament, Maximilian Krah, said that members of the wartime SS were not automatically “criminals.” Krah is also being investigated by the police for accepting payments from China and Russia. His problems followed a secret meeting in a hotel outside Berlin where senior officials in the AfD discussed the mass deportation of non-ethnic Germans, including German citizens.

This was too much even for the European Parliament’s far-right Identity Democracy Group which this week expelled the AfD from its ranks. Marine Le Pen said that it was “urgent to establish a cordon sanitaire” between the AfD and Europe’s other far-right parties.

The expulsion of the AfD came only two weeks after a meeting of far-right parties to unofficially launch their campaign for the European Parliament elections. The meeting resulted in a strongly worded statement against illegal migration, the European Commission’s climate policy and support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

The meeting outside Madrid was hosted by Spain’s Vox party. Its president, Santiago Abascal, called for unity. “In the face of globalism,” he said, “we must respond with a global alliance of patriots in defense of common sense, economic prosperity, security and freedom because we share the threat that leads us to solidarity.”

Ukraine

America has this week finally agreed to allow Ukraine to use its weapons to attack targets inside Russia.

Mind you, not all Russian targets, Ukraine is still barred from using America’s Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) for long-range strikes. But it can now “hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them.”

The impetus for the American policy change is the threat posted to Kharkiv – Ukraine’s second largest city – by the Russian offensive and the decision of NATO’s European members to ignore Washington’s objections and lift restrictions on using their weapons to hit Russian targets.

President Volodomyr Zelensky has since April been pressing for permission to attack Russian airfields where aircraft and drones are based for attacks on civilian targets and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as well as well as threatening Kharkiv. Ukrainian sources say that up to 3,000 Russian glider bombs a month are being dropped on Ukrainian targets.

The first go-ahead came from Britain when Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron visited Kyiv on 3 May. Then on Monday NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly issued Declaration 489 which called on allies “to support Ukraine in its international right to defend itself by lifting some restrictions on the use of weapons provided by NATO allies to strike legitimate targets in Russia.”

With the declaration in place, French President Emmanuel Macron ended a three-day visit with German Chancellor Olof Scholz by lifting restrictions on French weapons. He said: “Ukrainian soil is being attacked from bases in Russia. So how do we explain to the Ukrainians that we are going to have to protect these towns…if we tell them you are not allowed to hit the point from which the missiles are fired.”

Macron also said France would soon be sending French troops to Ukraine to instruct Ukrainians in how to best use French weapons.

German Chancellor Olof Scholz also said that Germany was lifting restrictions on the use of most of its weapons, although he stressed that the Ukrainians would still not be allowed to use the Taurus missile systems with their 316-mile range.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain". To subscribe to his email alerts on world affairs click here.