Recently, the first black leader of South Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), Mmusi Maimane, stepped down as leader of the party. Maimane had been seen by some as having a real chance to reorient South African politics by tapping into long-simmering discontent with the ANC by many in the black majority who still do not feel seen or serviced by government. The DA also hoped to capitalize on Maimane’s youth—he was only 34 when he took over as party leader. It was, thus, his race and his youth around which the party hoped to rally younger voters, whose support for the ANC is the lowest of any group.

The idea that opposition parties might be able to tap into the large number of underemployed youth and other discontented citizens across the southern African region has long been a feature of political commentary and politician discourse. Apart from South Africa, in Lesotho, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, the idea that opposition parties might harness those disconnected from the system has a certain appeal. These analyses, however, all assume that these individuals and groups feel like the political system can fundamentally reform to meet their needs. What if, however, the disaffection has spread so widely that youth and marginalized adults are reaching a tipping point, where people are going to demand not merely inclusion into previously exclusionary political systems, but rather a fundamental reorientation of political and economic systems they view as corrupt for having shut them out entirely for so long? Could we be seeing the start of a “new Southern Africa 1968” where protests by youth and the disaffected have a chance of fundamentally altering, or at least shaking the foundations of current systems?