South Africa is rapidly approaching the end of Jacob Zuma’s tenure as president of the country. Zuma will likely step down shortly after the election of a new leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) at its December 2017 National Conference and well before the conclusion of his second term as president of South Africa in 2019. This would avoid a ‘two centres of power’ problem (a new president of the ANC in Johannesburg and
an outgoing South African president in Pretoria). New leadership would also allow to take the party into the next national elections after which, even if the ANC loses its absolute majority, it will continue governing South Africa in a
coalition with smaller parties. Against that backdrop this report attempts to first briefly review recent history,
and then presents an analysis of broad priorities that could help guide such
a future orientation for a post-Zuma presidency. To that purpose the report
uses the current path forecast within the International Futures (IFs) forecasting
system to identify the likely trajectory in shifts in power and influence over longtime horizons. The current path assumes no major paradigm shifts, seismic
policy changes, or transformative ‘black swans’ (very low-probability but high impact events), but models a dynamic, interconnected future.
