ANC romps home, now bargaining starts

It won most of the votes in the Western Cape and Kwazulu-natal – but not the power to govern

The ANC was aiming for three-thirds of the vote and nine out of nine provinces. It had to settle for two-thirds and seven and a half provinces.

By late on Thursday, with just under 77% of the national vote in, the ANC had secured 68.12% of the vote.

In the Western Cape, the ANC had 40.19% of the provincial vote and its coalition partner, the New National Party (NNP), 10.16%. This gives them a razor-thin majority in the province. The Democratic Alliance (DA) had secured 31.42% of the poll.

With the large vote secured by the ANC in the province, the grasp of NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk on the premiership looked increasingly shaky. If the ANC is to obtain the premiership — ANC provincial leader Ebrahim Rasool is said to be in the forefront — it would be politically difficult for the NNP’S national leader to serve under an ANC provincial leader. Speculation is rife that Van Schalkwyk could be offered a cabinet post, albeit a junior one.

Much of the ANC breakthrough has been ascribed to a campaign aimed at breaking down traditional hostility among coloured voters, the largest constituency among the Western Cape’s 2.2 million registered voters. And results from the completed rural municipalities showed the ANC fared well in the hinterlands, too.

The NNP has seen its support decimated from the 38.39% levels of 1999. A 50% voter turnout among the 119 000 registered voters in Mitchells Plain, a key urban NNP heartland, saw the result split four ways. The NNP won working-class areas like Tafelsig, according to results available, but other areas were split between the ANC, DA and the Independent Democrats (ID).

And the ID had overtaken the NNP in places like Swellendam, where it scored 10% against the NNP’S 8.3%.

Senior NNP officials conceded that white voters had left the party in large numbers for the DA.

The DA took heart from the fact that it had done better in many parts of the province than in the December 2000 poll. There could still be shifts once all the Cape Town metropole results were in, said DA provincial spokesperson Craig Morkel.

Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) officials expected results from township voting stations to come in last. And the ANC has traditionally fared well in these township areas.

In Kwazulu-natal, with 72.22% of the vote in, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) had 37.86% of the ballot, the DA 11.49% and the ANC 42.36%. This opens the way for the formation of an opposition coalition to keep the ANC out of the provincial government — unless the IFP decides to negotiate its way back into the national cabinet.

IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi has admitted that he is uncertain about his political future because relations between the ANC and the IFP are “in pieces”.

“If a coalition between the ANC and the IFP isn’t formed then contesting the results may be Buthelezi’s strategy to give him negotiating power,” said Adam Habib, the director of democracy and governance at the Human Sciences Research Council.

The likeliest scenario is an ANC/ IFP coalition under an IFP premiership, say most analysts. A second scenario is that Buthelezi will move to the opposition benches both at provincial and national level buttressing his alliance with the DA. This would please Tony Leon because if the IFP and ANC rekindle their partnership it could be at the expense of his nuptial with Buthelezi.

There seems to be a consensus that the IFP will only enter a coalition with the ANC if it is offered the premiership.

“The IFP claims that it represents the Zulu people, but if it doesn’t control the province, that makes a real mockery of the party,” said Habib.

Independent political analyst Protas Madladla disagreed saying the ANC’S pinnacle is to hold the premiership in the province and it is unlikely that it will forfeit that.

“This also offers a tidy solution for shifting [Jacob] Zuma out of the deputy presidency,” says Habib.

For a man with his amount of princely pride, however, “there is little prospect that Buthelezi would even contemplate the premiership of Kwazulu-natal irrespective of the roll of the dice”, said political analyst Kiru Naidoo.

If the ANC keeps the premiership close to its chest, S’bu Ndebele, leader of the ANC in Kwazulu-natal, is preening himself for the position. But, say experts, this may be slightly presumptuous.

“Mbeki realises that he needs a premier who has good relations with both the ANC and the IFP, someone who is not tainted by the conflict in the province and someone who can reduce the political temperatures without losing respect. Ndebele doesn’t fit that profile,” said analyst Aubrey Matshiqi.

Buthelezi’s only other option is to straddle the awkward divide between his traditionalist party and the DA as the official opposition in the province. But “I can’t imagine Buthelezi playing second fiddle to Leon and I can’t imagine Leon having the foresight to give the leadership of the opposition to Buthelezi, even though being deputy of a national bloc [rather than leader of a white party] would make him more powerful,” said Habib.

Political analyst Vincent Maphai says the elections have done little to shake up the political landscape. He said that both the ANC and the DA had retained their core constituencies and made little impact on new territories. “It was very important for symbolic reasons for the ANC to go to working-class areas and speak to them during campaigning.”

But both the DA and ANC know that such campaigning will not translate into significant electoral shifts. They must still win people’s trust.

Maphai said the elections had marked the death of the NNP as well as “radical” parties such as the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, Socialist Party of Azania and Azapo. “This marks that the centre is getting stronger, what is called philosophical conversion on major issues.”

The ANC has secured North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga with well over 80% of the vote. In the Eastern Cape and the Free State the ANC got more than 75% of the vote, while in the Northern Cape and Gauteng, it received more than 60% of the ballot.