Is a snap election possible in South Africa? Let's look at various scenarios

With the recent election of a new leader of the Liberal Party in Canada to replace outgoing premier, Justin Trudeau, the rumours of a snap or early election immediately arose in that country.

- POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE

An early election is usually an election that is called before the end of a four- or five-year term is over.

The new leader, Mark Carney, will probably do this to consolidate the position of his party. Under Trudeau, the party started to decline and had to form a loose coalition with opposition parties. US President Donald Trump reactivated Canadian politics when he introduced tariffs and referred to Canada as a “51st American state”.

Calling a snap-election will probably boost the fortunes of the Liberal Party against the Conservative Party.

SOUTH AFRICAN SCENARIOS

For the first time since democracy in 1994, government could not submit a budget in February 2025 and it had to be rescheduled to 12 March for final submission. This was, inter alia, caused by opposition in the Government of National Unity (GNU) to the proposed increase in the 15% value-added tax to a proposed 17%.

This crisis generated a couple of scenarios, such as the GNU accepting the budget despite all the differences; or the GNU not agreeing and voting against the budget. The second scenario seems to be the most likely scenario, as the DA, with almost 22% of support in Parliament, having said that it would not give its support to the budget due to Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana raising VAT by 1% to be implemented over a two-year period.