text: 2024 general election The 2024 general election was considered by many to be the most consequential election since 1994. The popularity of the ANC waned as the country faced further power cuts, soaring crime, and stagnating growth. Several opposition parties, primarily led by the DA, formed the Multi-Party Charter, an electoral agreement to challenge the ANC. Additionally, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), a new party led by Jacob Zuma, threatened the ANC from the left-wing.
  The election saw a historic decline for the ANC, losing their majority in the National Assembly, primarily to the MK, which saw most support in KwaZulu-Natal. This led to the ANC to form a Second Government of National Unity, a coalition with the DA, IFP, Patriotic Alliance, and GOOD.
  Emigration, debt burden and poverty
  The immediate post-apartheid period was marked by an exodus of skilled white South Africans, who left due to safety concerns. The South African Institute of Race Relations estimated in 2008 that 800,000 or more white people had emigrated overseas since 1995, out of the approximately 4,000,000 who were in South Africa when apartheid formally ended the year before. Large white South African diasporas, both English- and Afrikaans-speaking, sprouted in Australia, New Zealand, North America, and especially in the United Kingdom to which around 550,000 South Africans emigrated.