Will
the May 29 elections be quite the watershed moment everyone expects?
(Written for Democracy Development Programme May 2024)
With a view to the 29 May
elections, three leading recent opinion surveys have pegged support for the
African National Congress (ANC) at 40% or below. This suggests the ANC will
lose power, which immediately brings up the question of coalition governments
at national level and in several provinces. Hence, the question everybody is
currently asking is, with which other party or parties will the ANC conclude a
coalition deal to be able to remain a governing party.
Most commentators view the
2024 election as likely to mark a pivotal moment in South Africa’s 30-year-old
democratic history and one that will decisively change the political landscape.
Such a notion is not quite new though - in our 30 years of democracy we have
previously seen such “watershed” moments that altered the political landscape: in 2007 when Jacob
Zuma replaced Thabo Mbeki as ANC leader soon to become president, and again in
2014 when Julius Malema and his radical, populist Economic Freedom Fighters
(EFF) emerged as South Africa’s third biggest political party after their noisy
breakaway from the ANC. And the ANC’s 2017 National Conference through to the
2019 elections was also supposed to be such a moment of change on the back of
Cyril Ramaphosa’s promise of “a new dawn” which never materialised.
And so, here we are again at
another anticipated pivotal moment of change, with South Africans seemingly
fixated on the idea of an ANC election defeat, driven by opinion polls and
embellished by opposition politicians. But some sobering questions arise that
challenge this widely shared opinion that the ANC is about to exit from the
political centre stage.
Admittedly, since the advent
of democracy in 1994 the ANC has never seemed weaker than now. But, at the time
of writing we were still a month away from the 29 May elections, and as the
ANC’s election machinery facilitated by control of state resources kicks into
top gear for the final month of campaigning, there are a number of factors that
could possibly still improve the party’s election chances.
With that in mind, the
question arises whether this election will indeed be the watershed one? Or will
the real change for better or for worse only come in 2029, with this election
merely being the precursor setting in motion the processes that will ultimately
lead us to that? Have we really reached the moment where South Africa will
transition from30 years of largely destructive one-party-dominant rule by a
fading erstwhile liberation movement to a more diverse and inclusive governing
coalition of several parties? Or have we reached the point where the ruling ANC
will be shown the door, a fate that has befallen numerous African “liberation
parties” before? Or will it stubbornly cling to power, perhaps by hook or by
crook? For the answers we will have to wait until after 29 May but there’s no
harm in interrogating the factors that could alter the current popular
narrative.
Although the opinion surveys
have recorded a steady downward trend in ANC support over the last year, and
previous elections and recent by-elections tend to support this trend, it’s by
no means a foregone conclusion that the ANC will be ousted from power just yet.
It could still manage to scrape home and remain the sole ruling party at
national level, with varying possibilities in the provinces. And even if its
support fell not too far below 50%, it will still find itself in government as
the dominant party in a governing coalition. For more significant change to
kick in, the ANC’s support on 29 May must fall below 45%. That’s when one or
more of the other big parties will get a real bite at power, setting the stage
for what may come when we return to the polls in 2029.
Will the opinion polls be
proven right?
Currently this possibility of
the ANC remaining in power is the wild card in the pack, the outside chance,
but it’s definitely still there. First, one should reasonably question the
accuracy or reliability of the opinion surveys. We all know how in 2016 the
opinion polls got it horribly wrong both before the Brexit referendum in
Britain and the election of Donald Trump as US president.
In South Africa, with a view
to the national provincial elections on 29 May, the local opinion polls have
often over the past year come up with widely differing results, with one
particular poll still showing ANC support at 51% earlier this year, and now
having adjusted it right down to below 40%. That’s an unlikely swing of more
than 11% in just three months. In six of the most recent surveys, support for
the ANC varied from 48% down to 37% - again a big variance, so, which one do
you believe?
The different surveys also use
different methodologies, different sample sizes, different and differently
structured questions, and different anticipated voter turnouts (which will have
an impact on the election results). Most surveys are no longer conducted in
person or door-to-door but are done via cellphones, which arguably may exclude
a large representative proportion of people from the sample surveyed because
they have no cellphone access for a variety of reasons. That will surely
undermine accuracy.
One good example of this
phenomenon in action is how the polls have been suggesting – they don’t like
the word predicting - that the Democratic Alliance (DA) will remain in power in
the Western Cape, possibly with a relatively small loss of support. The Patriotic
Alliance (PA) of Gayton McKenzie hardly featured in these polls. But when you
look at recent municipal by-election results, the PA has been making serious
inroads in DA country – McKenzie’s appeal to the coloured community that their
time has come after being sidelined respectively by both the apartheid and ANC/DA
regimes, seems to have found a responsive audience not picked up by the opinion
polls. Afterall, their grievances of neglect are real, and McKenzie is from
that community, speaks its language with all its dialectical nuances and
coding, and shares their concerns, speaking convincingly to this constituency
in ways that a Steenhuisen, Malema or Ramaphosa could never do, the essence and
impact of which can easily be missed by a ‘scientific’ opinion poll.
McKenzie is no fool and has
done his homework, reaching out also to another DA constituency, the Afrikaner
community – note his visit to Orania and interactions with various Afrikaner
groups and leaders. He wants to capitalise on the fact that the DA already
started losing Afrikaner support in the Western Cape and Gauteng to the Freedom
Front Plus (FF+) and other small parties in the elections of 2019 and 2021, if
not to bolster his own party then to weaken the DA and elevate the PA to the
role of kingmaker.
After the DA stubbornly
excluded the PA from the Multi-Party Charter (MPC) group of opposition parties
it leads, McKenzie has promised that it’s payback time. And if McKenzie’s
efforts and the recent by-election results in the Western Cape, plus popular
sentiment in this province’s majority coloured community with its large Muslim
component over the fate of Palestinians in Israel’s war in Gaza are anything to
go by, payback could mean the DA losing control of the province and being
forced into a coalition arrangement with smaller parties such as the Freedom
Front Plus (FF+). And McKenzie and his PA will also be waiting in the wings.
Similarly, none of the polls
or political pundits saw Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP) coming.
Like McKenzie’s assault on the DA, Zuma too is out to exact revenge from Cyril
Ramaphosa and the ANC over what he views as their unfair treatment of him. And
that could come in the form of the MKP seriously diluting ANC support in
KwaZulu-Natal and becoming a key partner in a provincial governing coalition,
while it could possibly do the same at national level. There is a Machiavellian
lesson to learn from all of this: don’t isolate your political enemies but keep
them close and never underestimate the power of wounded egos in politics.
However, for now it would be prudent to keep a question mark over the various
opinion surveys and their tentative suggestions towards a possible outcome on
May 29.
How can the ANC still
rescue itself?
The ANC is known for
effectively kicking its election campaigns into top gear only in the last month
before polling often with good results – which is exactly what it is doing
right now. Since shortly before Freedom Day on April 27, the ANC and its leader,
Cyril Ramaphosa, aggressively launched the party’s final offensive for the
month of May. Ramaphosa speaks confidently of the ANC winning and remaining in
power – is this just campaign bluster or is he and his fellow ANC leaders
hiding something they know, and we don’t?
At a recent meeting of the
National Executive Committee (NEC) the ANC’s battle plans were laid out in
detail – in a leaked audio recording the ANC election campaign boss seemed
confident the party could again capture the 10 million votes that gave it 57.5%
of the seats in Parliament in 2019, but Ramaphosa demanded they aim for 14
million instead. However, Ramaphosa also raised concerns over signs of
lacklustre campaigning in some areas – most likely that is or has been rapidly
addressed.
Nonetheless, his demand was
followed up by he himself campaigning door-to-door in Soweto – something the
ANC is very good at and always utilises with good effect in the very last
stretch of every election campaign. In similar vein the big guns, cabinet ministers
and party leaders, were unleashed on townships around the country; past
presidents are being roped in, with Thabo Mbeki leading and Kgalema Motlanthe
likely to join him, despite their past criticisms of their own party; and
government funds and resources are seemingly starting to be used for ANC
campaign advertising, events and transport, much to the chagrin of the
opposition DA. The food parcels, T-shirts, organised transport, and other
handouts, plus promises of houses and better local services, will surely
follow.
The DA has lodged a complaint
with the Public Protector accusing the ANC of “manipulating the public purse to
pay for the ANC’s election campaign”. This, the DA says, would be done via a
series of public relations exercises and paid media advertisements promoting
state projects and governance where the ANC has governed over the last 30
years. This is indeed what was discussed at the recent ANC NEC meeting.
Included in this strategy is a directive to tend to specific service delivery
failures days ahead of ANC campaign visits, to create the illusion of efficient
state delivery by the ANC government.
However, is this really such a
surprise or is not something that ruling parties everywhere seem to do? In
apartheid South Africa the then ruling National Party had perfected the art. Ramaphosa
has indeed directed the NEC and his ministers to use their government
departments to focus strongly on highlighting the claimed achievements and
successes of the ANC over the past 30 years… a strategy he first employed in
his state-of-the-nation-address in February with his story about Tintswalo, the
so-called child of democracy. Critics should have seen it coming.
The ANC are masters of such
deception and persuasion at election time. The party has a significant and
well-oiled election machinery and tried and trusted strategies, while it
recently seemed to have augmented its funds after initially being under pressure.
Some suggest the sources of this are abroad among the ANC’s many authoritarian
and radical new friends on the international geopolitical stage. Be that as it
may, none of these developments and how potential voters are being influenced
or responding to them, will have been picked up in the opinion polls to date.
And that could well still make a difference and possibly arrest the ANC’s
losing trend in the polls.
The question therefore is,
will all of this persuade the multitude of disillusioned voters to again
support the ANC? The same opinion surveys that have stacked the losing odds
against the ANC, have also indicated that while their respondents blame the ANC
for things in the country having broken down and going in the wrong direction,
the majority still feel the ANC is most effective at governing. The DA comes in
a fairly close second, about 6 to 8 percentage points behind. Yet in another
survey anomaly, there seems to be almost equal support among voters for a
future coalition that excluded the ANC and an ANC-DA coalition, but with a
possible coalition between the ANC and the EFF also coming in not too far
behind as the third most popular option. The latter option is one that three of
the latest opinion polls seem to support very strongly, but we’ll return to
that in a moment.
There are other factors too
that could benefit the ANC. For one, the recent highly publicised corruption
charges brought against the former defence minister and Speaker of Parliament
Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, could help reduce criticism that the ANC is doing
nothing about corruption and failing to prosecute its own. And the recent
continuous and fairly long run of electricity provision without loadshedding
interruptions, could also soften criticism on that front. Both are big election
issues. It’s likely that Ramaphosa or one of his ministers may also still pull
some rabbit from his or her hat on the jobs front in days to come - another
pressing, perhaps the most pressing, election issue.
Furthermore, the ANC has over
the past year or two steadily implemented a programme of increasingly
radicalising or fast-tracking left-leaning policy and legislative content
within its economic focus, but also in other spheres such as the National
Health Insurance (NHI) and the expansion of student funding at tertiary level.
This is a response to the demands of both a more militant and radical segment
of the youth – the largest potential voting bloc – and those of a broader
economically marginalised segment of society for radical economic
transformation. It is the same demand on which parties like the EFF and Zuma’s
MKP have successfully capitalised and continue doing so.
And then there is the massive
population segment – about 50% or 27.3 million people - who rely on some or
other form of social grants from government, something the ANC has carefully
nurtured. The ANC government’s very recent extension – timed well to come just
before the elections - of the COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant (SRD
Grant) until March 2025, and the plans it is dangling before the electorate to
possibly make this grant a permanent one, will not have gone unnoticed by this
captive audience, particularly in light of ANC warnings that voting for a
potential new government could lead to the loss of these grants.
The ANC government’s recent
actions on the international relations front will also not have gone unnoticed
at home, particularly its bringing of genocide charges against Israel in Gaza
at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). That speaks directly to the heart
of a major domestic electoral segment made up of a large and often
militant-leaning youth sector, a progressive and usually more progressive urban
constituency, and the significant Muslim religious communities of the Western
Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng plus the many who support their pro-Palestinian
cause. Then of course there are the habitual United States haters who will also
be pleased – an unproven generalisation I know, but you nonetheless pick it up
in many places.
A radical leftist or
moderate centrist coalition?
So, in the event that the ANC
manages to cling to power on May 29, whether by scraping home with a fragile
majority or by ending up as the dominant party in a national coalition
government, it will be a sobering wake-up moment for the ANC and will set in
motion the processes that will most likely lead to more significant political
change in the 2029 election.
At this juncture, having seen
how it has self-destructed and nearly got relegated to history, the ANC will
seriously look at ways to reinvent itself and structure governance and policies
in ways that will secure its own future. This will mean the ANC will either go
the moderate centrist route, clean up its act and introduce more balanced and
liberal policies aimed at turning the economy around and addressing poverty,
unemployment and all the other things on which it failed in the past. Or it may
opt for the more radical route to the left, a position from where with its
radical leftwing partners it may pursue more centralised authoritarian rule
with the underlying aim of entrenching itself/themselves in a position of more
permanent rule, and not necessarily by democratic means.
The ANC itself says it has not
considered forming a coalition as it believes it can win again. So no clues
there. But if the ANC loses its monopoly on power with a small margin, it will
most likely partner with small parties that it can dominate. If its support
drops below 45% as the most recent opinion polls suggest, it will be forced to
consider the larger DA/MPC on the centre-right, or the EFF and MKP on the left
as coalition partners – options that is also supported by the numbers in the latest
opinion polls. There are of course a few other possible coalition permutations,
but they will mostly bring together highly disparate parties in a very
dysfunctional government and are probably not being considered at the moment.
Forget about the previous
assertions by political parties on both sides of the spectrum that they would
never work with the ANC. When it comes to the horse-trading for a slice of the
power after May 29, all previous odds, preconditions and objections will be off
the table. An entirely new ballgame will have started in which anything will be
possible. However, under prevailing circumstances, the smart money would be on
a leftwing coalition being formed if it’s up to the ANC– which will be a better
fit for the ANC’s existing ideology, policies and international relations. This
will also be a passport to the authoritarian, entrenched-power scenario. If it
opted for a coalition in the centre-right with the moderate DA and/or MPC, the
ANC would have to tone down or even radically alter its current ideology,
policy and geopolitical offering – and that would probably be a bridge too far,
even for a party with its back against the wall.
