Dropping below 50% support nationally is a psychological blow for the ruling ANC — and an electoral outcome that will usher in a new era of coalition politics ahead of the next general election in 2024.
At the time of going to print, and with almost 40% of the vote in local government elections counted, the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research places the party’s support at 46.5% — a drop from 57.5% in the national election in 2019 and 54.5% in the 2016 local government elections.
The vote tally in the country’s eight metros also shows a dramatic decline in support for the ANC, and a sharp rejection of the party by the urban electorate.
The damage has bled into all ANC areas, even strongholds such as Mangaung and eThekwini. And coalitions will now be the order of the day.
Already, there are mutterings in the ANC about where to place the blame for the party’s poor performance, with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s opponents laying it squarely at his feet.
This is despite the fact that the decline in support can be traced to the very doorstep of some hard-core Jacob Zuma lieutenants, including Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina.
But even those who support Ramaphosa suggest the result is a direct consequence of his indecisiveness and dithering — and his decision to choose unity with his opponents over genuine reform, particularly in internal ANC matters.
Does this mean Ramaphosa is in danger of losing a potential bid for a second term at the party’s helm in 2022? Very likely not.
His opponents are far too disorganised and scattered to mount a significant challenge. For a start, they don’t have a candidate to rally behind. Secretary-general Ace Magashule is suspended from his influential post in Luthuli House, and facing possible disciplinary charges from the party. He’s also fighting off corruption charges linked to a R250m asbestos contract awarded during his tenure as Free State premier.
But this doesn’t mean Ramaphosa’s critics won’t use the ANC’s poor electoral showing against him in the run-up to next year’s elective conference.
There is widespread agreement in the party that it was load-shedding and blackouts in key ANC strongholds that were the deciding factor in the party’s poor performance — and that the repercussions of the Zuma-era state capture project on key institutions such as Eskom are only now starting to be felt.
But part of the issue is that Ramaphosa has been too "accommodating of mediocrity" and too slow to address key problems in his cabinet, which is said to be slowing down the renewal of Eskom and other key state entities.
"You can’t have one minister in charge of operations and another [in charge] of policy … it does not make sense, especially as the two had to be forced out of their slumber during the load-shedding to come out and say something," an ANC provincial leader says of public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan and mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe.
"Also, this [Eskom] unbundling is years in the making and there is just no movement. [The] government has only itself to blame ... You can’t have an administration constantly sitting on its hands."
Speaking on internal party dynamics, another provincial leader expresses concern that the poor electoral showing will place Ramaphosa’s reform agenda in jeopardy. The source is concerned that the many party members pushing back against attempts to renew the ANC will use the result as an excuse to halt reform, arguing that it is being rejected by the electorate.
However, the truth is that there hasn’t been anything other than cosmetic reform so far. Ramaphosa has been achingly slow in reforming the party itself, opting to focus on unity instead and pandering to the radical economic transformation faction.
"What did he think? Did he think the ANC was going to suddenly bring members down from heaven to reform it?
"No, it is the same rotten membership which is credited to Zuma and Mantashe [as former secretary-general] who now think they can reform this thing; it can’t be done," the leader says.
He refers to former president Thabo Mbeki’s comments that the ANC base should comprise "fewer but better" members, versus the Zuma-Mantashe approach of swelling the party’s ranks to the million mark.
[The] government
has only itself to blame ... You can’t have an administration constantly sitting on its hands
While on the campaign trail, Mbeki complained about the calibre of ANC members and those populating key posts. But Ramaphosa’s reform agenda has thus far failed to tackle this issue. In fact, it took half his first term for his core leadership team to act against Magashule. And those implicated in state capture and corruption continue to hold influential and crucial positions within the party — think Mosebenzi Zwane, Malusi Gigaba and Faith Muthambi (the latter two will interview ANC mayoral candidates after the polls).
In the end, Ramaphosa’s lipstick-on-a-pig approach to reforming his party and the state is clearly not fooling voters, whose day-to-day experience of government and service delivery hasn’t changed.
The coalition agreements entered into by the ANC over the next week or two will be crucial as to whether it can turn its electoral misfortune around in time for the 2024 election. If it doesn’t, it’s at risk of losing the country’s economic hub, Gauteng.
Richard Calland, the founding partner at the Paternoster Group: African Political Insight, tells the FM the ANC faces challenges going into coalitions with either the DA or the EFF.
At the time of going to print, the EFF appears to be the most logical bedfellow for the ANC to take control of Ekurhuleni and Tshwane.
But a cloud remains over the party after its most recent foray into co-operative agreements at municipal level in Joburg and Tshwane, amid allegations of dodgy contracts that benefited the EFF.
Another potential drawback is that the EFF has largely failed to win actual wards in past elections, and this one looks set to mirror that result. This makes it difficult to identify its constituency, which renders horse-trading in coalition agreements more complex as leaders demand concessions that benefit themselves over an identifiable constituency, says an ANC insider.
Another option would be the DA, but a coalition with the party would feed into the narrative, pushed by Ramaphosa’s detractors, that he is a proxy candidate for white rule, endangering his second-term prospects.
In the end, more likely tie-ups would be between the ANC and smaller parties, many of which have posted a strong showing in the polls (newcomer ActionSA in particular), says Calland.
But ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba is emphatic that the party will steer clear of an alliance with the ANC.
An ActionSA insider tells the FM that while it’s early days, the party is eyeing a potential DA-Freedom Front Plus coalition to control both Tshwane and Joburg. (But results as they stand at the time of going to print suggest such an arrangement would fall short of giving the parties outright control.)
The DA’s performance, while slightly better than in 2019, is still far short of its strong showing in the 2016 local government elections.
At the time of going to print, leader John Steenhuisen remains confident that there will be no need to fall on his sword, as former leader Mmusi Maimane did in the aftermath of the party’s dismal 2019 performance. He’s adamant that the DA will perform well in the end, despite results showing it has bled support even in strongholds such as Cape Town.
The apparent record-low voter turnout is as much a rejection of the ANC as it is of the other large opposition parties: voters simply did not see them as an alternative to the ruling party, and so stayed away from the polls instead.
It’s the rejection of the ANC, though, which is arguably most likely to change the political landscape. The party will probably face a continued decline in support into the 2024 election, and will likely be forced into coalitions. And its internal decay, too, appears to be here to stay — unless Ramaphosa and the current leadership have the guts to radically reform the historically exhausted organisation.
Perhaps, in the end, the strongest lesson will be a complete loss of power.
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