Elections are special ‘dialogue with the people’ times for the African National Congress (ANC). Elections are the inner sanctum of re-endorsement, recognising the ‘long road we have travelled’ even if ‘we have to do more’, ‘we have to try harder’, ‘we have to do this together’ and ‘we have to realise economic liberation’. The defeat and occasional destruction of opposition parties is less the result of direct attack than ‘fall out’ suffered by opposition parties in these times of ANC reconnection with the people. The ANC's successive quests in national elections have built on its successful regeneration of the belief that the ANC is the authentic embodiment of the liberation ideals of the people, that the ANC-in-government is continuing to progress towards more complete transformation, and that opposition to the ANC largely lacks credibility and integrity – or is deficient in patriotism and revolutionary belief, aka the national democratic revolution.

Elections are pivotal to the ANC's regeneration of political power. The ANC enjoyed an uninterrupted line of commanding party political and state power courtesy of its dominance across four sets of national and provincial elections. The provincial exception of the Western Cape and modest deviations in local election 2011 delivered signs that the electoral prowess of the juggernaut was not entirely invincible, even if still massive. The ANC's electoral performances were also shadowed by internecine contests between intra-ANC factions, often with eyes cast on the next round of elections and appointments. Cracks and contradictions, both intra-ANC and inter-party, that were unlikely to go away emerged.

Electoral victory and its reputation for electoral omnipotence have sustained the ANC in the face of many other weaknesses. Consistent electoral majorities of over 60 per cent were the ANC's insurance against adversarial protest and people's dissent. Elections have also been the ANC's mechanism to mobilise and unite factions cyclically ‘for another five years’. Convincing election victories anchored in deep bonds between the ANC and the people, especially black-African South Africans, have helped the ANC buy time to get governance in order.