GARETH VAN ONSELEN: What 2021 election percentage is defensible for the DA?

As things stand, the DA is going to drop support again in the upcoming local government elections. It managed 27.02% in 2016, a high-water mark for party, but given its decline in 2019 (down by 1.46 percentage points from 22.23% in 2014 to 20.77%) — and a fundamental change to the electoral landscape (Jacob Zuma is gone) — it is highly unlikely to reach or breach its 2016 performance.

The numbers

Historically, the opposition — on the back of disproportionate turnout in its favour — tends to fare much better in local elections (ANC voters aren’t nearly as enthusiastic as in national elections). Here is the difference in hard numbers for the DA, for each set of national and local election (using the proportional representation ballot for local elections):

1999 (national): 9.56%
2000 (local): 22.10%
Difference: +12.54
2004 (national): 12.37%
2006 (local): 16.20%
Difference: +3.83
2009 (national): 16.66%
2011 (local): 24.10%
Difference: +7.44
2014 (national): 22.23%
2016: (local): 27.02%
Difference: +4.79
2019 (national): 20.77%
2021 (local): TBD

So, how will you tell if the DA has turned the tide? It could grow from 2019, in the way it typically does, by say three or four percentage points (and even that is a big ask), but still finish far off the 27% it managed in 2016. Would that mean it had arrested its decline? Perhaps.

But it would be a hard sell as far as the fourth estate goes. Its measure will be 2016, however the DA spins it.

The bottom line

There are some baseline results that would indicate unequivocal failure.

If the DA falls below the 20.77% it obtained in 2019 (perception wise, anything below 20% would be an outright disaster).
If the DA loses its majority in Cape Town (if it were to lose control over other powerful DA metaphors for good governance, such as Midvaal, this would be deeply damaging).
If the DA doesn’t grow in any significant way, ending up, say, on 21% or 22% — below its average uptick in local elections (not an outright disaster, but relative failure).

In the other direction, there are some baseline indicators that would suggest the DA has at least stabilised, if not turned the tide.

If the DA is able to grow by three or four percentage points from 2019 in these elections, as it typically does.
If it manages to hold a relatively healthy majority in Cape Town (it managed 66% in 2016, so anything above 55%).
If it can keep or grow its hold over existing municipalities.

Perception wise, only two things matter really: if it can win power in a meaningful number of municipalities (of which Cape Town is quintessential) and how much support it loses compared to 2016.

Breaking even

Twenty-four percent would seem to be the number at which the DA starts to break even, and a good internal target (one needs to aim high); 21% to 22% is probably more realistic. While 24% might not be interpreted as a success, it really would be, given where the party is coming from. Anything above that would be truly remarkable; below that, troubling. And below that, things get very troubling very quickly. Each percentage point down from 24% becomes exponentially more difficult to justify as anything other than failure.

What are the external and internal pressures and opportunities?

Externally, there is no Zuma. He, more than anything, defined voter behaviour in 2016. In fact, it doesn’t matter who the DA leader is, Zuma’s absence would make life difficult regardless. There is, however, the ANC. And Zuma or no Zuma, the party has done its level best since his departure to demonstrate that corruption, incompetence and destructive policy are hard-wired into its DNA. That helps.

Internally, the DA is fragile and uncertain. It has repaired some of the directionless ambiguity that defined it under Mmusi Maimane — you can at least now point to some hard positions on key issues — but still, it does not seem unified behind a clear offer. It is skittish (as the recent Sunday Times coalition story revealed) and lacks self-belief.

In turn, many of the problems Maimane oversaw don’t immediately disappear overnight. A new dispensation does not wipe the slate clean. There is much the DA still needs to correct. That also needs to be borne in mind, when evaluating its performance.

As a result of all this, understandably for any party under pressure, it has resorted to what it knows best: hard-line opposition. Its brand as a competent government that delivers is still intact, but that does not extend, in the same way it used to, to an alternative national government. It’s decline has seen to that. That and the fact that these are local government elections. For a party that only lost 1.4 percentage points, the DA seems much smaller these days.

The future is Gauteng

That might well be enough in the Western Cape and Cape Town, its stronghold, but the real test of the DA’s future has always been Gauteng. As in 2016, this will be the province that makes or breaks the DA in 2021. And on that front, things are more difficult still.

Herman Mashaba will eat away at the DA’s vote share on the margins. The DA, as always, lacks big-impact mayoral candidates (a problem that necessitated the creation of Mashaba in the first place) and voters’ dire experience of DA coalitions will make the promise of more coalitions to come all the more difficult to sell.

Another brutal truth is, even in 2016, the DA underperformed in Gauteng. It always has. That may seem counterintuitive, given that it has grown consistently, but never to its potential. There are a great many voters — in Gauteng in particular — the DA just doesn’t seem able to carry over the finish line with it. The pool of potential is vast, the returns relatively small. Particularly among the working- and middle-class.

Apathy plays a part. Many ANC voters, alienated and angry, chose to abstain, or to vote for the EFF — the party that best represents their rage. Years of political turmoil don’t help. Nothing turns voters off more, and the DA has been in the thick of the mudslinging for ages now. Everyone up north is covered in slime.

To rise above that requires something new, and there is nothing significantly new on offer, on any side. At least, nothing that feels new. It’s all very well ANC voters staying away but no good if your own voters do the same, and certainly that electoral advantage is of no real help if you cannot convert said apathy to your cause.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Whatever the DA’s problems, they are nothing compared to the ANC, and the ANC in Gauteng in particular. Big things happen first in Gauteng. It is the testing lab for SA politics. The ANC has imploded in that province, and the breaking point is now within touching distance.

By design or happenstance, if a tipping point is passed, things could change fundamentally. As ever, you feel that more up to the ANC than anyone else. And, as ever, you feel it is more inclined to self-destruct than self-correct.

Keep calm and carry on

But these are forces beyond the DA’s control. In the face of it all, the DA needs to keep on holding it all together. Be calm, clear and unified, and pour everything into obtaining that 24%.

It is unlikely the DA will advocate a target in this election, as it has done in the past. Too risky. But it does need to start shaping expectations. As the election gets closer, that 27% in 2016 will become all-defining. And it’s a number the DA just cannot match.

For a party so used to growing election on election, the DA has a new challenge: how to define success in the midst of a decline. It needs to do that in an incredibly hostile and unsympathetic environment. Perhaps, as a result, it will simply go for the most basic option: anything above the 20.77% it managed in 2019 is a win. Whatever it decides, getting the world to agree is going to be incredibly difficult.