Of the dozen or so elections that will be held in Africa in 2014, the most consequential and widely watched will be South Africa’s in April. There are heavy headwinds ahead of the vote, buffeting the ANC like never before, but the ship is unlikely to keel over.

A dramatic move by the white-led Democratic Alliance (DA) to seek black credibility by linking with the upstart Agang party, founded by the late Steve Biko’s partner, Mamphela Ramphele, has unravelled as quickly as it was mooted.

The more interesting and important issue is the likely impact of Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party.

In 2008, another offshoot from the ANC called Congress of the People (COPE) was whitewashed in the following year’s election. It was founded by a small elite within the ANC that rebelled against the election of Jacob Zuma as party president.

Its fundamental problem was that it didn’t stand for any particular message to distinguish it from the mother party. Worse still, its exuded the rather pungent odour of being mere defectors.

Malema is different. He has fashioned a radical message of empowerment that strikes at the heart of South Africa’s twin evils: Inequality and racism. And he can boast that rather than defecting, the ANC kicked him out when it could not stomach his socialist message.

The common narrative from many Western commentators is of an ANC party riddled in corruption, incompetence and statism. There is much of that to be sure. Yet, there is much more to the whole issue.

Dominance

The ANC, or a variant of it, will remain dominant as long as politics in South Africa remain race-based, which could be a long while. The black majority cannot, for now, conceive of an alternative that touches their psyche.

Malema has a compelling message of economic empowerment, but the best he will do is to draw disenchanted numbers from the ANC. He cannot possibly be the torpedo that sinks the ANC ship.

Malawi is the other southern bellwether that holds its election on May 20. The fact that only the second woman head of state on the continent is up for election is reason enough for interest.

Joyce Banda was an unlikely figure when she rose to power in 2012 following the death of President Bingu Mutharika, who had severely marginalised her as vice president.

She came in with a strong anti-corruption credo and promised to dismantle the patronage networks of her predecessor. Her passion and sincerity are not in doubt. Rather, it is her competence that is leading many earlier admirers to conclude that she is out of her depth.

Under her watch, a monumental scandal involving theft of donor funds by top officials has come to light, raising questions on whether she was culpable or merely too naïve to figure out what her crafty underlings were doing.

Incumbency will help her, though the foreign donors who once cheered her are no longer ecstatic. Her most potent foe in the election is her predecessor’s brother, Peter Mutharika, whom Banda charged with treason for trying to block her from constitutionally ascending to power when Bingu died.

Botswana, Mozambique and Namibia complete the line-up of Southern African states holding elections this year. In each case, the outcome is likely to be a formality, with the incumbents expected to romp home victorious.

Guinea-Bissau kicks off Africa’s election cycle next month. It is a complicated little state, with the worst record of coups on the continent. No elected administration has ever completed a term, courtesy of the military.

Under the supervision of UN special representative Jose-Ramos Horta, Guinea-Bissau was given March 16 as the date to hold elections, after the previous November date was postponed.

The politicians, however, are calling for yet another postponement, claiming the pre-poll process has been riddled with technical glitches. The elections are meant to restore constitutional order following the last military coup in 2012.

It remains unclear whether an election is going to be possible in the Central African Republic. Interim President Catherine Samba-Panza has clearly the most unenviable job in Africa and she struggles to stabilise a country where a virtual civil war has erupted along Muslim-Christian sectarian lines.

READ: Is Samba-Panza upto the task of saving a failing CAR?

The priority is of course to restore normalcy with the help of thousands of French and AU peacekeeping troops. It is anybody’s bet whether the climate will be suitable to hold an election this year.

The remaining continental quartet of elections is scheduled in the Arab North, which is still recovering from the tumult of the Arab Spring.

Narrative of the north

The narrative of the north is how well the emergent Islamist parties will score. Algeria, which somehow was not hit as hard by the Arab Spring, is pulling out all the stops to block an Islamist insurgence. Incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika will be fronted by the ruling National Liberation Front for the presidency.

The main Islamist party will be boycotting the election.

Libya is where there could be a problem. Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the oil-rich state has become a patchwork of warlords and duelling fiefdoms with no central figure who can be said to call the shots.

The power configuration is still a work-in-progress since the ouster of Gaddafi and the disorder that followed. Libya’s interim parliament has set February 20 as the date for a national election to choose a 50-member panel to draft the country’s constitution.

The interim body is split between a bloc dominated by Islamists and another by non-Islamists, which delayed passage of a law governing the vote. Last month, the interim body changed the deadline for drafting the constitution to August. That will be followed by elections for a new parliament, on an unspecified date.

Tunisia is where the Arab Spring was ignited, and in a trend that was quickly replicated elsewhere, the Islamists were soon at the forefront. The main Islamist Ennahda party says it expects the elections to be held in October.

Nothing dramatic is likely to happen in Mauritania, where politics is tightly controlled. President Mohammed Ould Abdelaziz, a former general and coup-maker, looks destined for another term. Like in Algeria, he keeps the Islamist Tawassoul party on a leash.