‘The people’ of South Africa afford the ANC immense leeway for underperformance and deficits. They have a deep and forgiving bond with their ANC. They treasure the assurances of ‘power to the people’ and largely continue to see the ANC as the torchbearer for their aspirations. The bond captures both evidence of caring and delivery, and a sense of belonging and identification. It bestows immense power on the ANC. It exists on a level that opposition parties fail to penetrate and constitutes a protective cordon for the ANC. Roughly 17 years into democracy, however, the bond has started to require careful nurturing to ensure its regeneration.

The ANC successfully emerged from the people's war of the decades before the 1990s (both internal and from exile) to take control of government and state in South Africa – and to govern legitimately in the name of the people. The statement ‘the people shall govern’ in the Freedom Charter is the origin of the notion of people's power in this context. ‘The people’ denotes the totality of those who are democracy oriented and, overwhelmingly, the formerly oppressed and by now at least politically-liberated, citizens of South Africa. ‘People's power’ indicates an organic link between the ANC and its followers – a relationship that could help the ANC outlast much evidence of imperfection, leadership insincerity and failures in government. There is space for neglect, failure and slippage. The ANC is thus afforded the space to thrive in the midst of deficits.

‘Power to the people’ has nevertheless increasingly been recognised to be a relative and, except in the case of the entrepreneurial and state tender-driven middle classes, a gradual process. Throughout the process, the people have retained immense patience and trust that the ANC will indeed deliver. In cases of failure thus far, and judged by electoral outcomes, the people have generally retained the belief that the ANC is more likely than other political parties to edge them closer to the better life.

The ANC sees itself as the legitimate representative of the aspirations of the people; the truthful and rightful custodian. This ANC-people relationship prevails on two tiers – on the level of liberation struggle and liberation legacy, and in the world of electoral support and experiences of government.