How will the relationship between the EFF and the ANC change after the election? The answer will determine the next five years.
Neither party knows yet how this will pan out. But one thing is clear from all the polls: the EFF is on the rise and the ANC is on the decline. To a limited extent at least, the ANC is going to need a partner.
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Both parties have clearly given the future some thought. Julius Malema has said on many occasions, the EFF’s Sunday rally being the most recent, that the party will be in government after May 8. He also says President Cyril Ramaphosa has offered both him and Floyd Shivambu a cabinet post. Though Ramaphosa’s office has denied this, as Malema pointed out Ramaphosa himself has not.
Malema said he declined. It was way too early to play all his cards. In any event, a cabinet seat or two would be of little benefit to Malema. It would constrain him, for little political return. The real power play for the EFF is in the provinces and metros. It is here that the EFF can exert influence to achieve its policy positions. It is also here that the opportunities for patronage and rent-seeking lie.
The coalition question centres on the outcome of the vote in Gauteng. The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) poll has the ANC in Gauteng on 41%, the DA on 33%, and the EFF on 14%. (The ANC’s own pollster for the province, Wits professor David Everatt, says these figures are nonsense and the ANC is on 56% and will comfortably make it across the line.)
The IRR poll suggests the ANC will not be able to make it across the line without the help of a few smaller parties. To stay in government a coalition with either the DA or the EFF will be necessary. For the DA or EFF to form a government without the ANC would require a coalition with one another, as well as with the smaller parties.
It will be a multi-layered negotiation of all three spheres of government and political leadership from national, provincial and local level party structures. The future of the metros will inevitably come into the picture, and so will talk of cabinet positions.
It is not possible to predict what the outcome will be. It will depend on how each party views its long-term strategic options against its short-term gains at all three levels of government. The best that can be done now is to spin out the implications of the mostly likely configuration in Gauteng.
A quick look at how the EFF has conducted itself in Johannesburg is instructive. It has simultaneously made tangible political gains explicitly in line with its political programme as well as patronage opportunities. It has forced a DA government to “in-source” security guards and cleaning services, at great expense to the city.
It also successfully contained the water and electricity tariff increases proposed by the DA. And, lastly, it was hugely successful in leveraging patronage opportunities, behind the scenes as a silent partner to the IFP. It is no wonder that Malema constantly remarks how fond he is of DA mayor Herman Mashaba.
On the face of it an ANC-EFF coalition in the province would reunite old comrades and be more stable and less fraught than any other arrangement. The EFF would put forward a programme of action based on its core principles: expropriation of land without compensation; job creation; and improved rights and conditions for public sector employees and public works beneficiaries. The ANC, which has already supported some of this, will be easily amenable. For the ANC, it will be a politically comfortable coalition, while one with the DA would be ideologically difficult. The EFF’s positions on race and the economy resonate well within it.
The EFF, though, will not engage with the ANC in a straightforward manner. Since the removal of Jacob Zuma, the EFF has taken an active interest in ANC factional politics, aligning itself with the anti-Ramaphosa forces. It has attacked anti-corruption crusader Pravin Gordhan and backed former SA Revenue Service commissioner Tom Moyane.
An invitation into government will likely strengthen the fight-back brigade, but the effect on the Gauteng government will also be regressive. David Makhura, the premier for the past five years, has built a government where provincial cabinet ministers and officials are held to account. He has begun to professionalise the administration.
Inviting in the EFF will cause both the ANC and Gauteng to slide back into mediocrity, patronage and cronyism.
• Paton is writer at large.
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