Protector of the Party: The Political Logic of Protest Repression in Post-Apartheid South Africa

This paper investigates the political logic of protest repression in post-apartheid South Africa, arguing that as the African National Congress (ANC) faces electoral decline, it deploys strategic and selective coercion to manage opposition. Using protest data from ACLED (2014–2024) merged with electoral and demographic information, I show that repression isnot uniformly applied but disproportionately targets movements aligned with electorally threatening actors, such as the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and student movements. By integrating statistical analysis with qualitative illustrations, the paper reveals how protest policing functions as a tool of partisan maintenance under democratic decline. The studycontributes to scholarship on repression in electoral regimes, highlighting how dominant parties manipulate state institutions not to eliminate dissent broadly, but to selectively suppress actors with the capacity to reshape the distribution of political power. South Africa’s experience offers broader implications for understanding how long-ruling parties resist political erosion without overtly violating democratic norms.