Craig Dodds

EFF LEADER Julius Malema must have enjoyed the attentions of the ANC – the party that so casually discarded him – knowing all along he would leave it standing at the altar.

Once again, he proved to be one step ahead of his coalition suitors, the ANC and the DA.

He appears to have understood the dangers for junior partners in coalitions – that they carry the political risks of appearing to sell out their voters, without being able to claim any credit for whatever cogovernment is able to deliver.

So he found a way to have his coalition cake and eat it.

In a scenario in which few, if any, of the EFF’s manifesto promises were likely to be realised, actually winning a council and being saddled with the responsibility of government – facing the same resource constraints, infrastructure backlogs and capacity deficits as its predecessors – may have been an undesirable outcome at this stage.

Even less desirable would have been to share the burden with another party while carrying a disproportionate quantum of blame for the continued frustrations of the EFF’s core constituency, the marginalised and alienated black youth.

The EFF’s compromise position – a casual relationship with the DA and others – achieves the goal of turning the screws on the ANC without the political risks of coalition.

The EFF will still capitalise on every shortcoming of DA and ANC-run councils, showing up wherever there is a grievance, without having to answer for any of them.

More than that, the DA’s dependence on the EFF to continue its grip on Tshwane, and probably Johannesburg, means every concession it is able to wring from the DA in the arduous negotiations required to pass budgets will be chalked up as a victory.

And it holds the ace of being in a position to pull the plug at any stage, should it feel it is not being taken seriously.

The DA mayors in these councils, despite being the “senior” partners, can expect to spend much of the next five years on their knees.

Clearly, the DA will be hoping it will be able to make a demonstrable difference in its newly conquered territory, but that is easier said than done.

And even if it succeeds there will be pockets it doesn’t reach, where the EFF can hope to grow its support.

Shrewd as this strategy may be, it remains a gamble, because these elections may yet turn out to be the high-water mark of the EFF’s growth. Much depends on the ANC. The significant number of township voters who stayed away (or didn’t register) as an expression of their disappointment in the ANC probably remain more available in future polls to the ANC than to other parties, as their reluctance to switch their votes would suggest.

Even those who did dump the ANC for someone else – recorded in the minor gains of the EFF and DA – might be coaxed back to the fold, if the ANC responds appropriately to the grievances that turned them off in the first place.

Whether or not it can do so remains the big unknown between now and the 2019 national and provincial polls.

If reports of President Jacob Zuma’s verdict on the polls at the closing of the ANC’s National Executive Committee lekgotla last weekend are anything to go by, the party’s first response will be to plunge its head into the sand.

But the political blowback within the ANC of this electoral disaster – the rage of its councillor candidates whose hopes of a job have been dashed and the fears for theirs of those who can see where the party is heading – has yet to be fully unleashed.

When it is it may decisively shift the balance of power.

Pinning the blame on the Gauteng provincial leadership isn’t going to fly, considering the party recorded a drop in support in every province except KwaZulu-Natal, where its marginal gains failed to offset the dismal national picture.

Considering the EFF and DA’s appeal to former ANC voters hinged heavily on the ANC’s weaknesses, the Zuma factor in particular, a new leadership, cleansed of all factional traces of the “premier league”, might profit from a significant bounce at the next elections where prodigal voters return and the disillusioned who didn’t vote are filled with new enthusiasm.

If, on the other hand, Zuma’s grip on the party continues to drag it further out of alignment with the interests of the majority, it may find itself hav- ing to court Malema all over again, this time with Gauteng or even a national majority as the prize.

This is almost certainly the scenario Malema is banking on, in which he would be able to dictate terms at national, rather than just local level.

But if Zuma goes and the ANC emerges reinvigorated from its current nightmare, the EFF may have to cash in its chips in the Gauteng metros by dumping the DA in a deal with the ANC to force a re-run of these elections, taking whatever tidbits the governing party is willing to offer.

We don’t have long to wait to see which way the wind is blowing in the ANC, with a fascinating opening stanza in the broader battle set for Tuesday, when Parliament’s communications oversight committee begins to tackle the unholy mess at the SABC.

Whether the party’s MPs adhere to the NEC line and initiate the radical overhaul the public broadcaster needs, or they adopt Zuma’s belief that there’s nothing wrong, will reveal a lot about the current balance of power.

Time will tell how far these elections have tilted that balance.