It doesn’t take an Einstein to work out that the ANC is weaker and more divided than it has ever been in its 110 years of existence.
It is also clear that the ANC’s problems threaten the stability of SA, as we saw with the July riots last year. Again, you don’t need to be a genius to see this. For example, in January, at an ANC national executive committee meeting, the party’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, told his comrades: “Divisions and factions in the ANC themselves are becoming a threat to our democracy.”
So why are opposition parties still looking so weak at a time when the ANC is the face of mass corruption and the embodiment of incompetent governance? Why is it not a foregone conclusion that we are counting the days until voters kick out a party that by all accounts has failed miserably, particularly in the past 13 years?
I am worried that we overanalyse the ANC and forget to turn the spotlight on the opposition. That’s not right. Let me show you why.
Over the past few weeks several opinion polls have been leaked or released and they indicate that the ANC may get a bloody nose when national and provincial elections come round in 2024 — but that’s not guaranteed. A few weeks ago, the newspaper Rapport reported that an internal ANC poll showed the party possibly sinking to a shocking 38% (from 57% in 2019) in 2024. The DA would improve to 27% from 20% in 2019. The EFF would remain at 10%, the same as 2019. The poll showed the newbie ActionSA and the IFP both on 6%.
It seems incredible that a party that has scored as many own goals as the ANC has is not headed for relegation in the next 18 months
At the same time a poll by Ipsos, a highly reputable outfit that has been doing this work with significant accuracy for a long time, showed the ANC at 42% while the DA plunged to 11% and the EFF slid to 9%. In this poll, the excitement around ActionSA turns out to be a chimera — it attracts only 3% of the votes.
Last week Frans Cronjé’s Social Research Foundation said the ANC would not suffer as catastrophic a decline as others predicted. Instead, it said, if 66% of registered voters turned up to cast their votes on election day 2024, the ANC would still win a 50% majority nationally. The DA and EFF would both improve, but to just 25% and 12% respectively.
All these surveys have got analysts and commentators all atwitter about the ANC’s performance. Yet I think we need to understand what’s going on with the opposition. It seems incredible that a party that has scored as many own goals as the ANC has is not headed for relegation in the next 18 months. Instead, if you read Cronjé’s projections, the ANC will remain a significant player on the political landscape no matter how things pan out.
What is it that the opposition is not getting right? Why is the DA, with its resources and example of success in the Western Cape, failing to go above 30%? Why has the EFF plateaued? Last week we saw COPE, which just 13 years ago was SA’s third-largest elected party, finally collapse as its leaders fought in front of television cameras. The coalitions between the DA, ActionSA, the EFF and other smaller parties at municipal level are disintegrating or taking huge strain. The feckless, flip-flopping EFF and its leaders are already talking to the ANC with a view to coalitions in 2024.
So the question, once one gets past the ANC’s problems, is this: why is the electorate not galvanised by the opposition? Consider how tetchy the DA gets when anyone discusses the departure from its ranks of black leaders, from Mmusi Maimane to Makashule Gana. Is it time to self-reflect, deeply, instead of being defensive? Perhaps the EFF should reflect on the fact that its media conferences are updates on the inner workings of ANC factions instead of being about the EFF’s programme?
If opposition parties do not do some serious self-reflection the ANC will waltz into power again in 2024.
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