Coloured voters ‘likely focused on domestic issues’
Local issues are more likely to determine political party support in the upcoming national and provincial elections in the Western Cape rather than a position on the Israel-Hamas war, the DA says.
This emerged from the polling it has conducted among its support base and is also supported by some political analysts.
The party has won the provincial elections every year since 2009 on the back of solid support from the coloured community — the majority in the province — a small minority of which is Muslim and potential supporters of Palestine.
According to the 2022 census, the Western Cape has a total population of 7.4-million of which 42% are coloured, 39% African and 16.4% white. In the 2019 elections, the DA won 55.45% of the provincial vote.
Some believe the party’s ambiguity on the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Middle East could lose it some votes in the watershed general elections to be held sometime in 2024.
Polls now show the ANC will struggle to get the 50% plus one it requires to run the country, opening a space for coalitions in various provincial governments and the national government.
The DA, SA’s official opposition, is expected to play a pivotal role in those coalitions. But this could be made difficult if it haemorrhages black votes.
The ANC has been decimated in the Western Cape, but the strengthening of other parties such as the Patriotic Alliance could eat away at the DA’s support base.
Some believe the DA has not been sufficiently forthright in its position on the Israel-Hamas war, among them former member Ghaleb Cachalia who resigned last week after failing to comply with party orders that only its international relations and co-operation spokesperson Emma Powell could speak on the Israel-Hamas war.
Cachalia believes Israel’s killing of more than 25,000 Palestinians is tantamount to genocide, but this is something that still has to be decided on by the International Court of Justice on the basis of SA’s application.
The Gaza health ministry has said 25,105 Palestinians have been killed and 62,681 have been wounded in Israeli strikes since October 7, Reuters reports.
The DA has called on Israel to uphold the Geneva Convention’s condemnation of carpet bombing of civilians but has also upheld the right of Israel to defend itself against the Hamas attack on civilians on October 7. It has stated that it believes in a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine and that the two parties need to come to the peace table as quickly as possible.
Powell rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments opposing the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a post-war scenario. Netanyahu claimed that Israel must have “security control” over all territory west of the Jordan River, acknowledging that this “collides with the idea of sovereignty”.
Powell said a two-state solution is the only way to bring lasting peace to the region. She said in an interview that there had been much misrepresentation of the DA’s position on the war.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said in an interview on Friday that the DA has not seen any effect of its position on the war on its voters. “Voters are far more concerned about the issues that matter to them here in SA — crime, electricity, unemployment, shortages and a failing education system. Those are the issues that matter to voters and those are the issues we will continue to focus on.”
Powell has also been quoted as saying the DA’s polling had found the war does not appear to be a priority that is affecting its polling results among its traditional coloured supporters.
“The DA has conducted polling on the war and the results revealed that it is unlikely to have a material impact on our electoral support,” Powell said. “By and large the vast majority of South Africans remain focused on domestic issues such as jobs, crime, energy security and education.”
Political analyst Ntsikelelo Breakfast believed that the DA’s track record of governance and service delivery in the province would be the important factor for voters. “I don’t think the DA will be dealt a blow by the coloured vote because of the position it has taken on Israel. There might be a few unhappy people but it won’t be a massive blow,” he said. Local issues would dominate rather than anything happening on the international scene.
Political analyst Prof Tinyiko Maluleke said the DA’s stance on Israel should not be considered in isolation from other election factors. “While some election issues loom larger than others, few elections in this country and elsewhere have been significantly determined/influenced by a single issue. It is the extent to which one issue may resonate with other issues that influence the influence of such an issue,” he said.
He stressed that the DA’s stance on Israel should not be cast solely as a coloured vote issue as coloureds were not proPalestine as a group. While their numerical preponderance in the Western Cape made them a significant voting constituency in the region, their homogeneity must neither be assumed, nor taken too far.
“The political reality the DA must and has to deal with is the extent to which the party has allowed their black (not just coloured) support to inform party policies, culture, identities of leaders and structures. This is the question/crisis the DA has been saddled with for a long time. Their apparently growing black and coloured support has not always been reflected in the culture, leadership and policies of the party,” Maluleke said.
In the past few weeks, the party has lost senior black leaders including Cachalia, giving an impression it was no longer fit for purpose for the black voter. Gauteng’s long-serving leader Khume Ramulifho also resigned from the party to join new political outfit Rise Mzansi.
Nelson Mandela University political science lecturer Ongama Mtimka stressed the coloured community was not homogeneous and would include different reactions to the DA stance on the Israel-Hamas war.