Future of opposition parties hinges on what ANC does
If opposition parties do influence what happens in Parliament in February, this will be the last time they shape events for quite a while. One effect of the leadership change in the ANC is that the Teflon has worn off opposition parties. Their tactics and actions are no longer accepted without question in the mainstream.
It has become far more common to ask whether continuing to focus on President Jacob Zuma when he is on his way out is a sensible tactic and whether the DA and EFF are playing their cards as well as they could.
Not long ago, opposition parties were shielded from criticism because they were part of the fight against Zuma.
However, it is now common among opposition supporters as well as opponents to ask whether the DA has handled the Patricia de Lille saga well, or whether statements by party leaders — including Western Cape Premier Helen Zille, whose use of Twitter never does her party any favours — are helping it.
The media’s admiration for the EFF has been tempered by attempts to mobilise people to demand university places that do not exist, and the trashing of stores.
A clear theme has emerged: the major opposition parties, not long ago on a roll, are now inflicting wounds on themselves, which will cost them at the polls unless they are fixed.
This is half-true. The major opposition parties have been largely unaccountable until recently and so many of their problems were hidden.
Besides the issues in the news, DA governance of the municipalities it runs is largely ignored despite reports in this newspaper of corruption allegations in Johannesburg and no sign of improvement in the way the city is run. The EFF continues to give the DA a blank cheque in these cities, despite occasional threats to hold it to account.
Local governing parties that are not held to account are sure to behave in ways that get them into trouble when the tide changes and they are looked at more carefully. So there are problems opposition parties need to fix if they are to adapt to a world in which they do not get a free pass.
But it is only half-true because, in reality, what opposition parties do between now and the 2019 election does not matter.
The change in the climate since the ANC chose new leaders has confirmed the message of the 2016 local elections: the ANC’s fortunes depend not on what the opposition does but on what it does.
It fared badly in local elections not because many ANC voters jumped ship but because they stayed away, signalling that the ANC remained their political home. They were expressing anger with its leaders in the hope that they would change, so that they could return to the ANC. Now many believe the change has happened and are edging back. None of this is influenced in the slightest by what the opposition does.
This does not mean the ANC is sure to romp home in 2019. Some of its actions over the past month suggest to disillusioned supporters that it may be cleaning house.
But if the momentum of the last few weeks slows and voters begin to feel that the ANC is not serious about fighting the misuse of public money and trust, it will find itself in trouble again. That too has nothing to do with anything the opposition does.
Politics in the next 18 months or so will hinge on whether the ANC is seen by voters as a changed party that is more interested in those who elected than itself.
What it does will decide whether the opposition loses or gains. But opposition parties have no power to decide this themselves.