Do South Africans hold strong populist attitudes? If so, who is the ‘populist citizen’ and have these attitudes been activated in the electoral arena? In this article, we make use of 2019 Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP) data to answer these questions. We find that populist attitudes tend to vary across levels of education, geographic location and racial groups. Given the constant supply of populist rhetoric from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), we expected this party to marshal electoral support from citizens holding the strongest populist attitudes. However, we contend that the party's racialised populism and radicalism ultimately handicapped it at the ballot box. The EFF ultimately suffered from citizens’ mistrust, its lack of credibility and savvy political moves by the ANC ahead of the election.

This article examines the use of populist discourse in South African politics. We investigate speeches of leaders from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). We find that the EFF consistently employs populist appeals, while both the incumbent ANC and official opposition DA largely refrain. Our longitudinal analysis allows an examination of fluctuation across party leaders and electoral cycles, and illustrates that neither the ANC nor the DA have modified their political discourses in light of a rising populist challenger. However, there is some evidence that the two most dominant parties have reformed their programmatic offerings and behaviour in an attempt to compete with the EFF's popular appeal. The South African case offers important insights into the study of oppositional populism on the African continent, and a window into how major political parties may respond to emerging populist contenders.

On October 23, 2019, Botswana held its twelfth free and fair election. For the first time in the history of Botswana’s electoral democracy, a former president (Ian Khama) defected from the ruling party and supported the opposition. The opposition coalition, working informally with Khama, mounted a spirited campaign against the well-oiled machine, the incumbent and long-ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). Seabo and Nyenhuis reflect on the 2019 general election, analyze the outcome, and consider the implications for the future of Botswana’s electoral democracy. They argue that barring other factors, the BDP’s resounding victory was mainly a result of Batswana’s rejection of former president Ian Khama.