Zuma loyalists’ poll strategy a lost cause
The move by some in the ANC in KwaZuluNatal to call on loyalists of former president Jacob Zuma to split their votes in the 2019 election is likely to backfire.
The Zuma faction in the province appears to be following a strategy similar to that of some ANC structures in Gauteng ahead of the 2014 national election.
The Sunday Times reported that there were plans for Zuma loyalists to vote for the ANC provincially and another party at national level, to “punish” President Cyril Ramaphosa.
What the group is punishing him for is unclear. The February decision of the special national executive committee meeting was near unanimous and it was attended by many of the Zuma loyalists from the province.
The charges against Zuma also predate Ramaphosa and it was Zuma’s own attorney who admitted to the Supreme Court of Appeal that the 2009 decision to drop the fraud, corruption and racketeering charges against him was indeed unlawful. Zuma is aware of this, yet outside the courts he continued the narrative that swept him to power in 2007: that he is the victim of a political conspiracy. Back then, the intention behind this conspiracy was ostensibly to prevent his ascent to the presidency.
Now, the alleged motive is anyone’s guess.
It is not because he drove state policy on SA’s ties to the Brics countries, which he now claims. This formed part of ANC policy, not Zuma’s.
It was in fact championed by Thabo Mbeki, who first promoted partnerships with Brazil and India on economic issues, agriculture and information technology.
These collapsed, but they indicate that as far back as 2004 there was a bias in that direction and it deepened during Mbeki’s presidency.
Those inside and outside the ANC who continue to pledge allegiance to Zuma do so for two reasons: nostalgia for a return to his particular brand of patronage politics and fear that they are finally set to face the consequences of wrongdoing that was swept under the carpet during his tenure.
Back to splitting KwaZuluNatal’s vote and 2014, a groundbreaking year in SA politics.
Ahead of that year’s election the ANC had commissioned research into its electoral prospects. This showed voters were set to punish the party, particularly in Gauteng, over perceptions of corruption and the Nkandla saga.
The ANC nationally, under Zuma, ignored the warning signs, leaving Gauteng to scramble for a solution. One solution proposed by some was for the vote to be split, to vote for the ANC in Gauteng and another party nationally. This backfired spectacularly.
The ANC in Gauteng came close to losing the province after its support slipped by almost 10 percentage points. The carnage continued in 2016, when the ANC in Gauteng lost the country’s economic epicentre, Johannesburg, and its administrative capital, Tshwane.
Zuma backers who wish to repeat this strategy in KwaZuluNatal are therefore shortsighted. It is doomed to fail because Zuma does not enjoy the support his backers think he does in the ANC — otherwise the Nasrec conference in December would have been a walkover for his candidate.
Besides, it is presumptuous to believe that withholding their national vote would have a large effect on the party. After all, the ANC’s national support was never lower than when Zuma was at its helm. They would also risk sparking a resurgence of support for the IFP, which has just won a by-election in Jozini, a contested hung council in the province, snatching the ward from the ANC with a relatively high voter turnout.
The 2019 election is going to be a historic one. It follows a period in South African politics when support and perceptions of the ANC as a party are at an all time low. While the party has undergone changes recently, voters have also had a taste of the damage it inflicted first.
Civil society organisations made a stunning comeback during the Zuma years, with ordinary party members and citizens turning to them after their concerns were simply ignored by the governing party. This saw the Black Sash taking on Bathabile Dlamini in the social grants scandal, while Equal Education took the lead in the fight against pit toilets and Section27 was at the forefront of the bid to expose the Life Esidimeni atrocities.
It was also civil society that took on heavyweights in the security cluster in the courts and won. The Helen Suzman Foundation, Freedom Under Law and Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution won their cases to remove both Berning Ntlemeza and Shaun Abrahams.
The political landscape in SA is changing, and it is not just the ANC that is affected but the DA, EFF and all the smaller parties. While the ANC fights internally, the DA is battling its identity contradictions and the EFF is struggling to realign itself.
The political acumen of voters in both rural and urban areas has been dramatically sharpened by the Zuma years and no party is going to get an easy ride in future.
ZUMA HAS CONTINUED THE NARRATIVE THAT SWEPT HIM TO POWER IN 2007, THAT HE IS THE VICTIM OF A POLITICAL CONSPIRACY
Marrian is political editor.