President Cyril Ramaphosa, smarting from leading the ANC to its worst electoral performance yet, described the outcome, which will necessitate coalitions in councils across the country, as a victory for democracy and he made a call for leaders to work together.
“If we are to make this a new and better era, we as leaders must put aside our differences and work together in a spirit of partnership, of co-operation, of collaboration and common purpose in the interests of the people of SA,” he said in comments that came after the final results of the local government elections were released.
While the drop in the ANC’s share of the national vote to 46%, falling from what was regarded as a catastrophic slide to 54.5% in 2016, had some analysts wondering whether the decline is terminal and even whether his opponents will use it to try to oust him, Ramaphosa sees it as a sign of a maturing multiparty democracy. It is a clear demand from voters for improved service delivery, he said.
“The people of SA want their lives improved, they want better services, they want their representatives to be responsive and also to be accountable,” Ramaphosa said.
“They want to live in a better SA with equal opportunity where their rights are realised and where they are treated with dignity and respect.”
However much he tried to put a positive spin on it, the ANC’s broad-based losses across the country, with it just managing 33% in the economic powerhouse of Johannesburg, are a blow for Ramaphosa.
Popularity
He rose to the ANC presidency late in 2017 on an anti-corruption ticket after the scandals of Jacob Zuma’s rule. He led the party to a respectable victory margin, winning 58% in the 2019 elections.
But his personal popularity wasn’t enough this time, with the support having also been eroded by an economy that slumped the most in a century in 2020 due to the Covid-19 outbreak and associated lockdowns. For many traditional party backers, the collapse of services in ANC-led municipalities and infighting have become too much, despite Ramaphosa’s stated move to tackle rampant corruption and factionalism in the party and state.
The DA, the main opposition, failed to take advantage of the ANC’s decline and its share of the vote slid to 21% from 27% five years ago, though its leader, John Steenhuisen, said this is a “superficial” analysis that masks its gains.
It continued to lose votes to the Freedom Front Plus on the right and to former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA. The EFF had only marginal gains and was stuck at about 10%.
“The manner in which our people spoke should be indicative of how [we] as leaders should work together,” Ramaphosa said, perhaps alluding to the coalition talks that must now take place.
“We as leaders must put aside [differences] and work together in a spirit of partnership, co-operation, collaboration and common purpose.”
Even though less than half of those who registered to vote marked ballots on November 1, Ramaphosa claimed “through the participation of our people in this election we can truly say the people have spoken” and he thanked them for doing so.
Fewer people voted than those who chose not to register at all. About 13-million eligible adults abstained from registering. Of the 26-million adults who registered to vote, only 46% of them — 12-million voters — turned up.
Ramaphosa thanked the staff of the Electoral Commission of SA for their tireless work behind the scenes and many sleepless nights.
Analysts are divided on what the 2021 results suggest about the ANC’s prospects and whether they sound the party’s death knell. Long-time observer Susan Booysen says death can be a very long process. The ANC is “certainly shedding rather than gaining or growing. It is a long protracted process of the ANC going further and further into decline.”
While the ANC is not dead, “it’s in ICU”, said Ebrahim Fakir, director of the Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute.
The ANC’s losses — including losing its outright majority in eThekwini — are an indication that the growing “fractionalisation” or splintering of camps into smaller units since 2005 accelerated after 2017, when Ramaphosa won the party leadership by a narrow majority.
Inroads
After the final tally of votes, the ANC is set to retain control of only two metros: Buffalo City and Mangaung. Apart from Cape Town, coalitions will govern five of the six remaining metros.
The DA managed to make inroads in ANC strongholds of uMngeni municipality in KwaZulu-Natal and the Kouga municipality in the Eastern Cape. The opposition party is also set to retain control of Cape Town, which it has governed since 2006, after receiving almost 54% of the vote.
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