POLL TENSION GNAWS AT ANC
There are many questions which will be answered after the local elections on October 27. The most important of these is: will the ANC manage to reverse the trend of electoral decline which set in from 2009?
The “Ramaphosa factor” may have stabilised the ANC’s electoral support in many parts of SA, but what about KwaZulu-Natal? While much about the internal dynamics in the ANC was read into the shenanigans outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court, where former president Jacob Zuma appeared for the resumption of his corruption trial this week, KwaZulu-Natal is likely to be the ANC’s toughest election battle ground in October — and the party’s top brass know it.
The scenes playing out at the court may have in part been about internal party battles, but there was another shadow hovering, namely that of about 31 wards being contested just days later in a string of super Wednesday by-elections, as well as the forthcoming polls.
The ANC is not putting itself through the tumult of a “renewal” due to a sudden and miraculous desire to behave ethically; rather, it is because of the cold, harsh realisation that it will lose power if it does not. President Cyril Ramaphosa admitted on the party’s behalf before the commission of inquiry into state capture that it had been blind to the excesses of the administration under former president Jacob Zuma until its loss of electoral support accelerated dramatically, culminating in a drubbing in 2016.
The 2021 election could follow a similar pattern of national rather than local issues taking centre stage. And there are many such issues, from the government’s handling of the pandemic to the vaccination rollout, ballooning unemployment and to what extent those responsible for corruption and state capture are held to account. While Ramaphosa’s election as party president has largely stabilised ANC support in the rest of the country, this clearly isn’t the case in Zuma’s home province.
A “super Wednesday” round of by-elections in November last year brought interesting electoral shifts. This week’s round of polls is critical to determine whether those shifts can give us a hint of what to expect from the electorate in a few months.
Last November, the ANC and the EFF held their support nationally, while the DA emerged as the biggest loser. Interestingly, the EFF continued making significant inroads in KwaZulu-Natal, where EFF secretary-general Marshall Dlamini has been credited with growing the party’s popularity significantly. In the 2019 election, the EFF quadrupled its support in that province, from just 1.85% of the vote to a whopping 9.71%.
Support for the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, on the other hand, declined by 10 percentage points. Expect the
EFF to make further inroads in the upcoming polls.
This is at the heart of the conduct of senior ANC leaders at Zuma’s court appearance on Monday. While provincial ANC chair Sihle Zikalala and secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli said they were in court to support Zuma, their presence had much more to do with the party’s potential electoral fortunes in the province. Zuma himself, speaking in Zulu, cautioned fellow leaders not to fight ANC battles on a platform intended to support him.
Both the KwaZulu-Natal leaders and Zuma were trying hard to preserve a semblance of order at the court appearance in a bid to manage the complexities of the politics in the province without damaging brand ANC in the eyes of the electorate. But with tone-deaf leaders such as suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule blundering along, airing dirty party laundry on public platforms, it is possible that it is too late to halt the party’s electoral decline in the province.
Zuma himself cautioned fellow leaders not to fight ANC battles on a platform intended to support him