South Africa Takes an Uncertain Step Forward | Opinion

It has been noted with fanfare that more people are eligible to vote in 2024—over 4 billion—than ever before. But that includes pretend voting in countries like Russia that hold sham elections. So, let us instead focus on what’s real and celebrate actual advances as they come. There has been one this week, in South Africa. The achievement is that at last, 30 years after the abolition of apartheid—the system under which the black majority was denied suffrage and equal rights—the African National Congress has failed to win a majority. This is an achievement not necessarily because the ANC, which…