After 25 years in power, one would expect that the African National Congress—the party that brought South Africans the Marikana massacre, 40% unemployment, 6-hour power cuts, systemic broken local governance, the corruption of Jacob Zuma and the Guptas and more—would be on the ropes, but for some reason the opposition has not been able to capitalize on this. When the results were announced, the ANC still won with a clear majority (57.60% of the national vote) and eight out of nine provinces. The opposition, despite the damage the ANC has inflicted on itself and the country, is still not a serious political threat, but why has a serious alternative to the ANC not emerged?

For 25 years, many on the left believed that building an alternative would require civil society, NGO’s and social movements to create a countervailing power outside the state to hold the ANC to account, but this hasn’t produced the desired results. The short answer is that South African politics urgently needs an injection of electoral energy from the left, something that speaks in a language that resonates with voters, rejects all forms of chauvinism and embraces democracy.

One of the main stories of this election is low turnout. Given the array of unpalatable options on the table, it is hard to blame anyone who couldn’t stomach voting. According to South Africa’s national electoral commission, the IEC, there are 36,5 million people who are eligible to vote, yet only 26,7 million registered. That means about 9,8 million South Africans that did not register to vote, as the South African Federations of Trade Unions (SAFTU) pointed out after the election. A further 9,7 million registered but decided not to vote. The IEC reported that more than one quarter of a million people spoiled their ballots.

The support of the second largest party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), managed to garner around 20.77 % of the votes (it got 22.23% in the last election in 2014), but failed to win any provinces outside of its Western Cape stronghold (an interesting statistic is that third of voters didn’t bother to vote in the province). The DA is even more moribund than the ANC and in the post-Jacob Zuma era can only offer vague rhetoric, cheap stunts and opportunism, such as its xenophobic “secure our borders” campaign.

The shock of the election was the DA’s loss of votes to the right-wing Afrikaner nationalist party, the Freedom Front Plus. The FF Plus opposes affirmative action, denies Apartheid’s effects and opposes land reform at all costs. Despite the DA’s origins in the liberal opposition to Apartheid (for years it was the only opposition party, sometimes with one MP, in the whites-only parliament), it based much of post-1994 electoral growth strategy on absorbing right wing voters who supported the old National Party. While it has attracted black votes, the party has struggled to transform itself into a party of governance and its first black leader, the platitudinous and weak Mmusi Maimane, has failed to provide a clear vision.

The Economic Freedom Fighters, the third largest party in parliament, has cause to celebrate after it increased its share of seats in parliament substantially from 25 to 44. While not enough to force coalition provincial governments, the EFF is now the official opposition in three provinces usually dominated by the ANC, namely North West, Mpumalanga and Limpopo.

The ANC might be beset by internal strife, but it remains the only game in town its alliance partners—the trade union federation, COSATU, and the South African Communist Party—which could have served as a check on ANC power—are shadows of their former selves clinging to life through aligning to incumbent President Cyril Ramaphosa. They, or other left-leaning forces close to the ANC, are unlikely to influence policy going forward. At the end of the day, the ANC is as out of ideas as everyone else and has been promising to renew itself for more than a decade. The best we can hope for is some economic growth and ongoing repair to some of our most damaged institutions.