WHEN EVERY VOTE COUNTS

With the election outcome poised on a knife-edge, even minor embarrassments can be the difference between life and death for political parties

Ahead of every election, something happens that has a major impact on voters. Before the 2014 elections, e-tolls were introduced on Gauteng highways and the then public protector Thuli Madonsela released her damning report on Nkandla and the ANC suffered in consequence.

When South Africans went to the polls again five years later, the state capture revelations were fresh in people’s minds, and the ANC took another hit. The party’s top brass were relieved that the electoral damage was not even worse; “Ramaphoria” had saved their bacon.

The 2024 election is no different the launch of Jacob Zuma’s MK Party is a big event with the potential to shift the electoral needle. Internal ANC surveys conducted even before the birth of the new Zuma party showed party support at between 48% and 52% nationally, depending on turnout.

The ANC had already flagged KwaZulu-Natal as a potential problem due to the resurgence of the IFP now the threat has been redoubled by Zuma’s switch of allegiance.

On Tuesday, the electoral court overturned the ruling by the Electoral Commission of South Africa that Zuma could not stand as an MP due to his 2018 conviction for contempt of court. This cleared the way for Zuma to top the MK Party list, dealing a fresh blow to the party he abandoned.

The ANC lost a court bid to have the MK Party deregistered, but its fight to reclaim the Umkhonto we Sizwe name and logo continues.

So Zuma is constantly in the public eye; on the other hand though, his repeated appearances in court when he invariably looks old and grumpy are keeping him off the campaign trail.

The ANC research also flagged corruption as a key issue it cannot be coincidence that former National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula believes it was ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina who leaked information about the corruption accusations against her and who pushed for her arrest. Making an example of MapisaNqakula shortly before the elections could counter the perception that the party turns a blind eye to corruption among its leaders.

It’s not only the ANC that has its preelection problems.

The DA, for example, bungled its response to Israel’s devastation of Gaza the plight of the

Palestinians is a crucial issue for the substantial Muslim population in the Western Cape.

The ANC and its allies are doing what they can to exploit the Muslim anger. “The ANC’s support in the Western Cape is at its lowest and the only way it can go is up,” a party insider tells the FM. ANC animosity to Israel is nothing new, “but it will drive support”.

Cosatu will be holding its May 1 Workers Day rally in Athlone, Cape Town, and President Cyril Ramaphosa himself will address it. While the plan to hold the rally in the Western Cape was conceived last year, the ANC will seize the opportunity to twist the Middle East dagger deeper into the DA.

DA leader John Steenhuisen continues to rile his counterparts in other opposition parties by arguing that they should keep out of the Western Cape to ensure his party retains its majority in the province.

The DA, in the form of Helen Zille, has used this strategic “don’t split the vote” message in the Western Cape before. A vote for a “small party” is a vote for the ANC, was her mantra. Steenhuisen has simply placed a 2024 spin on an old message.

The EFF, too, is facing aftershocks from internal seismic shifts in Limpopo and KZN, two provinces where it registered significant growth in previous elections. The shake-ups in its structures are now coming back to bite.

Over the weekend, the ANC in Limpopo announced the return to its ranks of Jossey Buthane, who had helped build Julius Malema’s party in the province. ANC Limpopo provincial secretary Reuben Madadzhe tells the FM the ANC has welcomed 400 EFF defectors, some of them key organisers and campaigners. The rise of the MK Party is also eating away at EFF support in KZN, where more than 60 red beret apparatchiks were fired for failing to organise buses for the party’s 10th birthday rally last year.

The fledgling MK Party is facing its own internal ructions, which is only to be expected given the identity of its leader. A concerted effort to recruit former deputy president David Mabuza to the party fell flat last week. Mabuza put an end to Zuma’s relentless coaxing by issuing a statement saying he is campaigning for the ANC and has no interest in a new political home. In Mpumalanga, the party’s chief campaigner, Andries Gumede, is said to be disgruntled that he was placed far too low on the parliamentary list.

In an environment where every vote is going to count, it is well and truly game on.

The ANC will seize the opportunity to twist the

Middle East dagger deeper into the DA