IT has been 30 years since minority white rule gave way to majority black rule under a democratic South Africa.
In that time, the African National Congress (ANC) has been the undisputed and uninterrupted ruling party through successive elections.
It lost its parliamentary majority in the recently concluded elections, although it may continue to dominate in a coalition government.
The Alliance Party that was enlarged in 1974 to become the Barisan Nasional (BN) similarly ruled Malaysia through successive elections (except for the brief interregnum when Parliament was suspended following the May 13, 1969, racial riots), but for twice as long: from 1957 till BN lost the general election of 2018.
Corruption almost always inevitably sets in with lengthy, uninterrupted rule by a single party or coalition. Corruption is now similarly cited as the primary cause of the ANC's fall from grace.
The crucial difference in South Africa is that corruption went alongside a moribund, even tumbling, economy that increased the sense of general hopelessness as well as the ranks of the poor.
Malaysia, on the other hand, was able to identify with the so-called Asian tigers, which grew their economies phenomenally despite familiar common traits of rather authoritarian one-party (or one-coalition) rule (despite elections) and instances of corruption.
That said, Malaysia and South Africa share a startlingly common set of circumstances.
Both have to contend with far more economically dynamic ethnic or racial minorities, which result in policies favouring majority groups (our Bumiputera policies and black empowerment policies in South Africa).
However, it is grotesque for some Malaysians to label Malaysia as practising apartheid because of this.
Apartheid South Africa, it must be remembered, was odious and universally condemned (even by Malaysia) as minority whites not only controlled its economy, but also its politics since only they could vote nationally.
Malaysia, unlike South Africa, ensures fairly widespread prosperity, has banished poverty (more or less) and is on the cusp of high-income status.
BN's fall from grace in 2018 was thus largely a rejection by a middle-class electorate over the 1Malaysia Development Bhd saga.
In this we are following in the well-trodden footsteps of other East Asian polities (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) where, at one time or another, long-established ruling parties suffered the electoral wrath of voters.
We can only pray and hope that as our nation undergoes its own process of political evolution now, that we will again follow in the successful footsteps of our East Asian counterparts.
This, of course, has its own unique challenges in that neighbouring countries made successful transitions and evolutions as mono-ethnic states.
It will be interesting to see if post-2024 South Africa, tempered by the dictates of coalition politics, will take a leaf out of the East Asian playbook and focus on introducing business- and investment-friendly policies that grow its economy and lift large swathes of the black majority out of poverty.
Analysts rightly see the so-called rainbow nation — infused with such great hopes in 1994 as Nelson Mandela walked free and became its first post-apartheid president — as confronting a fork in its pathway into the future.
The ANC has two completely divergent paths as it ponders coalition suitors. It can take the Democratic Alliance in as a coalition partner.
The party largely identified with the white minority will bring economic savvy into national government and help reassure the local business community and foreign investors but comes with baggage that black nationalists may object to.
On the other hand, if the ANC seeks alliances with the two main black fringe parties, chances are they will reinforce the ANC's worst impulses and double down on populist policies that will probably do lasting damage to the nation.
* The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching