ANC is backing a loser

CONSIDERING that the ANC enjoys an unassailable majority in the National Assembly, it is understandable why some critics dismiss the DA’s motions for a vote of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma as frivolous and time-wasting.

But the critics miss a crucial point about the DA’s strategy. It has little to do with whether most MPs would vote in favour of removing the president.

Central to the DA’s strategy is a bid to tie the ANC’s fate to that of the increasingly unpopular Zuma. When a motion of no confidence is debated, the ANC is forced to defend its president, putting the party on the wrong side of popular opinion.

The DA hopes to benefit from this in the 2019 elections, with disappointed traditional ANC voters turning their backs on the ruling party.

The strategy paid handsome dividends for the DA and other opposition parties in August when the ANC’s defence of Zuma on Nkandla caused the party to lose control of several metros. Instead of celebrating the defeat of the opposition’s motion this week, the ANC and its supporters should be considering the damage the party suffers every time its MPs are forced to come to Zuma’s defence.

The latest debate was particularly harming to the ruling party because it emerged looking divided, weakened and suspicious of its own public representatives.

Zuma had to make a rare appearance at the party’s caucus meeting just hours before the vote, a move that suggested he feared some of his comrades were thinking about voting with opposition.

In the end, not a single ANC MP voted for Zuma’s removal. But the behaviour of the party’s senior leaders in the days leading up to the vote suggested that they know that it is just a matter of time before Zuma’s rejection gains popular support within their own ranks.