As the African National Congress (ANC) enters South Africa's third decade of democracy, it is strong but flawed, and increasingly frayed. It is far from defeated, but is toiling to prevent itself from falling below the waterline that separates exceptionalism from ordinariness. It is on the borderline where famed-liberation-movement-turned-political-party could become an ordinary contestant in a multiparty democracy or – worse – a predatory strongman. The ANC leads with substantial margins over its political rivals. It is in charge of a state that holds powerful apparatuses. This is still the time of ANC dominance and hegemony, although symptoms of declining power speak of a tumultuous twenty years in government that have gone well for the party but hardly as well as expected. Hegemony is being eroded. The liberation movement that had moved into democratic state power is making space for a new, reinvented, modern ANC. Its moral leadership is questioned, often.

It is a time of major contradictions for the ANC. The contemporary ANC has the inner organs and the nostalgic aura of the former liberation movement; it has the framework of a constitutional state and multiparty democracy, and lifeblood that blends high morality with corruption and self-humiliation – it wears the coat of a developmental state mired in patronage. It is hard work for this transformed ANC to build and maintain its power, and its methods do not always do justice to the lore of the former liberation movement. But the ANC does what it takes to defend its edge – within the parameters of its own rules and the political system in the time of President Jacob Zuma. The ANC of 2015–2016 is forging its way into continuous power, but is not regenerating at replacement levels.

Twenty-five years ago the enemy was external and the contest easily defined. Now, the ANC mostly battles enemies within. Many citizens still identify deeply with the ANC, but they also see the avarice and attempted delusion perpetrated by leaders. This dissonance fuels opposition parties and adds to citizens’ disappointment with transformation. The state malfunctions and underperforms, and at times the ANC barely controls it. The state is in courtship-partnership with black business and in tolerant coexistence with white business that plays by the ANC state's black economic empowerment (BEE) rules. The ANC is pliable when it comes to political class interests.