Ruling party faces loss in Gauteng
Face acute challenges to retain control in the 2019 general election
David Makhura is a man with many hats. ANC Gauteng chairperson, board member of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, Gauteng premier. But the role he relishes the most is that of activist. He hopes this is the hallmark of his first five years at the helm of the country’s economic heartland.
A not-so-pleasant role inadvertently conferred on him now is to ensure the ANC retains control of Gauteng, a key battleground, which the governing party is at risk of losing in this year’s general election on May 8.
Research conducted by the Gauteng office of the ANC — a sample of 3000 registered voters— places support for the party at 50% among registered voters.
An interesting finding in the survey is an increase in support for the ANC among minority groups with support among Indians increasing from 20% in 2016 to 45% in 2019, an increase from 10% in 2016 to 33% now among coloureds and from 3% to 8% among whites.
Insiders have attributed this to the “Ramaphosa factor”.
The problem for the party, however, is that, among Africans, its support stands at 64%. Before 2014 and 2016, its support among Africans in the province stood well above 70%.
Recent history shows that the party will find it difficult to turn these numbers around in order to retain control of the province.
The ANC’S support dropped by more than 10 percentage points in the 2014 elections and the party was dealt a devastating blow in 2016, losing Johannesburg and Tshwane, with its overall support in the province slipping below 50% for the first time since 1994.
About 80% of the electorate in Gauteng is in Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni and now two of the three metros are governed by the opposition. It is going to be a close electoral fight and the outcome in Gauteng could very well unsettle the balance of power nationally.
According to Makhura, who spoke to the Mail & Guardian after MEC Barbara Creecy tabled the province’s R132-billion budget this week, getting ANC loyalists who stayed away from the polls in the past two elections is key to reversing the province’s slide away from the governing party.
Makhura says the township vote is critical and he believes that a combination of President
Cyril Ramaphosa’s election to the helm of the ANC and his own fiveyear listening and
Activist: Gauteng premier David Makhura. rapid-response campaign will be enough to ensure that ANC loyalists turn up at the polls in droves.
Independent electoral analyst Dawie Scholtz sees two variables as critical to the ANC’S electoral fortunes in Gauteng. The first is voter turnout and the second is the township vote.
Scholtz says, in 2016, voter turnout in the suburbs was 71% and 52% in the townships and this had “amplified” Democratic Alliance support. The township voting pattern in the past three elections indicate that this is where the ANC bled support.
But Makhura believes he has a secret weapon in Ramaphosa. The ANC in Gauteng felt the effect of former president Jacob Zuma’s destructive near 10 years in office most acutely.
Scholtz says it remains unclear whether the Ramaphosa factor will be enough to swing Gauteng back to favour the ANC.
The Economic Freedom Fighters is now a critical player in the province, obtaining 10% of the 1.1-million votes it received nationally in 2014 from Gauteng. The EFF says it is too early to tell and too close to call which way voters will swing. The DA’S polling places the ANC at 48% and it is confident that a coalition government will be required in Gauteng.
Aside from Zuma, a flailing economy, unemployment, Eskom’s financial woes culminating in rolling blackouts, the Life Esidimeni scandal and the losing battle against electronic tolling are factors that weigh against Makhura’s attempts to retain control of the province. But he remains confident and determined.
He has learned that public servants are also a key problem in holding back the government from delivering on its promises.
“The calibre of public servants can be a real problem but this also links to the leadership at political level … sometimes policy is meant to be implemented but they are busy implementing something else,” he says.
“You cannot bring the change toward social justice if people are only taking care of their friends.”
He has worked to change this in the past five years and hopes to increase these attempts should he return to the post after the election.
For Makhura’s parting shot he puts on his activist hat, dismissing divisions in the ANC that continue to fester after Ramaphosa’s narrow victory at Nasrec in December 2017.
It is key for Ramaphosa to be handed an “overwhelming mandate” by South Africans across party lines, he says.
Makhura’s fate — and that of the ANC in the province — hangs in the balance. The key question is whether the election campaign with Ramaphosa at its centre, which will kick off in earnest when the provincial legislature rises later this month, will be enough to halt a very possible electoral loss.