GARETH VAN ONSELEN: SA’s two-bubble problem

There are various ways of looking at the SA political landscape. All generate different insights. One of these is to imagine two bubbles.  In bubble number one there is the ANC, EFF and the IFP. In bubble number two there is the DA, FF+, Action SA (ASA) and ACDP.

These are the main players. Smaller parties break between these two bubbles too, but as their vote share is negligible, let’s keep it simple.

Generally (but not absolutely), each bubble comprises a certain section of the market. Bubble number one constitutes potential ANC voters, and these three parties — ANC, EFF, IFP — are fighting over them. When the ANC is up, typically the EFF and IFP are down. When the EFF or IFP are up, typically the ANC is down. A great deal of this movement happens in KwaZulu-Natal, but not all of it. It is often a rural, more than urban, battle.

Bubble number two constitutes opposition voters, the bulk of which are potential DA supporters, and these four parties — DA, FF+, ASA, ACDP — are fighting over them. When the DA is up, typically FF+, ASA and the ACDP are down. And vice versa. A great deal of this movement happens in urban centres.

These bubbles are the two primary battle grounds in SA politics. They are not totally mutually exclusive — there is some bleed across bubbles — but it is generally very small and certainly not enough to discredit the more general observation.

It can be difficult to view our politics this way, after all, every opposition party, at least ostensibly, has ANC voters as their primary target. But in real terms, this is how things play out.  

It is difficult, on the available evidence, to determine exactly why the IFP is currently performing exceptionally well in KwaZulu-Natal. You can be sure though, it has something to do with ethnic nationalism. Under Jacob Zuma, the ANC’s greatest electoral success was in KwaZulu-Natal. Over a decade, the ANC consolidated the “Zulu” vote in that province, and decimated the IFP. With Zuma’s demise, the IFP is slowly winning back some of that lost support. The EFF too, is suffering in that province.

The same is true of bubble number two, in so far as it is difficult to tell what exactly is driving shifts. Again though, ethnic nationalism would seem to explain some of it. Certainly some more conservative “white” voters have been drawn back to the FF+, and “Coloured” nationalism — in the form of Good, the Patriotic Alliance, Cape Coloured Congress — is on the rise, particularly in the Western Cape.

And again, this is difficult to reconcile with much of the communication to come out of these parties, which ostensibly champion nonracialism and diversity, to varying degrees. 

There is one characteristic increasingly common to both bubbles: populism and the rise of the demagogue. Sometimes this is mild and implicit: one-man or one-woman parties that revolve almost entirely around the personality of a single individual. Other times it is profound and explicit, and the single individual in charge is wildly demagogic. In between there are established democratic parties, with a revolving leadership, but such is the obsession with “big man” politics in SA, individual leaders — more than shared values or principles — tend to encapsulate all parties in the voter’s mind, on any given Sunday.

The first insight, then, from this generalised view of the electoral landscape, is that the greatest force in SA politics remains ethnic nativism. Few things can compete with it, and when more objective issues or crises arise, they are often used by all political parties as surrogates to play to, or feed into that more base impulse.

The second insight is that no party, as of yet, has managed to penetrate both bubbles. That fact has been the cause of much public commentary. And while many have laid claim to the title “champion of the middle ground”, none have yet to deliver on that claim in any meaningful way.

That fact drives a number of parties — primarily in bubble number two — to the point of distraction. Certainly parties like the DA and ASA would having claiming the middle ground their sole purpose. But the hard numbers suggest otherwise. 

The third insight concerns coalitions, particularly opposition coalitions, about which there is much talk at the moment. The IFP is clearly the standout party on this front. It alone shares enough common ground with the ANC, and can bring to bubble number two meaningful ANC support, although essentially limited to KwaZulu-Natal. 

In turn, it suggests a problem for the EFF. Given that so much — if not all — of the EFF’s support comes from the ANC, any coalition with ANC would comprise a very real and meaningful threat to its constituency.

It is a well-established fact that the bigger party in any formal coalition tends to dominate, if not subsume, its smaller partners. That is especially true of smaller parties if its support base is susceptible to, or comes from, the party. The bigger party wins more influential positions and because they are bound together, on the downside, the smaller party is forced to share the failure of the bigger party. 

The EFF is well aware of this. It is why it always positions itself informally as separate from, but part of, any coalition. It is also why its preferred arrangement is total control over a given government, in exchange for total control to its competitor, regarding some other government. That way its brand remains singular and unconfused in the public mind. 

But even formal agreements do not negate these problems.  Smaller parties in bubble number two are also well aware of the risks. It is one of the reasons parties such as ASA are constantly disrupting. They actually fear success — because success means lesser ability to distinguish themselves, and a greater susceptibility to being dominated by the DA, and the inevitable PR that goes with being the mayor or premier. Success is how smaller parties risk being forgotten in the public mind; failure and contestation is how they ensure they are remembered.

But the two-bubbles principle also determines what issues any party tends to drive as wedges. The reason many of these parties, in both bubbles, cannot unite behind common evils — such as unemployment or education — is because they feel they constantly have to address the real battle, around whatever more nativistic impulse is actually driving support. 

The grand truth about SA politics is that the ANC has won. The ANC wrote the guidebook on political, ethnic and racial nativism. It might be useless these days at implementing its own rules but that doesn’t mean every other party hasn’t adopted that template in some form or other. The ANC has ensured that voters themselves think in these terms, and all political parties — despite their best efforts — often submit to that desire. 

It is worth saying something about the DA here, because it has positioned itself as the primary antidote to this sort of behaviour. It’s a tough one for the DA. It really does try to counter this impulse and, in much of its positioning and communication, it succeeds. Its problem is an almost pathological obsession with ANC corruption. 

While it is true that ANC corruption is a common, universal issue that can influence support on the margins of both bubbles, it has produced in the DA — and other opposition parties — a lazy overreliance on it.

Almost a decade ago now, the DA attempted to transform its brand from that of “a party of opposition” to “a party of government”. But it never fully changed. It cannot consistently communicate — whether in government or opposition — without mention of the ANC, or ANC corruption. So people often experience even its governments as a kind of opposition. 

Certainly the party leadership, in John Steenhuisen and Helen Zille, are both fundamentally oppositional in nature and totally consumed by ANC corruption. The prospect of either going a single day without mentioning the ANC is zero. There are “bigger”  young leaders in the DA, who have the potential reach beyond the bubble, but as far as the party proper goes, its approach is currently limited.

The DA is not meaningfully associated with economic prosperity or great education on its own terms. Rather, it is understood as “not the ANC”, primarily regarding two things: service delivery (a free-floating idea rarely attached any specific policy) and clean administration. If the ANC is ever able to deal with its reputation on this front, even if a pretence, or on the margins, there is little left to distinguish the DA from it. And so the DA must, at all times, and in the most absolute and vitriolic terms, reassure the public the ANC is the greatest possible evil. 

The sum the DA doesn’t seem that interested in solving is that once a voter has arrived at the conclusion the ANC is corrupt, and many have, then what? Then they look for something more. And here they run into the experience that is life in bubble number two: a perpetual low-grade war to shore up base support. If those issues don’t speak to you in any meaningful way, then you are more likely to opt out of the system than change your vote. And thus voter apathy has never been higher.

It is a vicious circle for all comers, this sort of politics. The ANC is constantly trying to convince us that corruption and incompetence are being addressed. Opposition parties are constantly trying to convince the public that things are getting worse and the ANC is irredeemable; if not, then gunning for each other’s support. The things is, those 20% or so of voters who are fluid and available to change are mostly in agreement that the ANC is broken. Their choice now seems to be to realign on some other ethnic issue, or not to vote.  

And so it goes. Two bubbles, each never to be popped; each a self-contained universe. The ANC could well get 51% in the next election. That will blow a lot of people’s minds if it happens. But it has a lot going for it on this front: for one, everyone is playing its game more than they are playing their own. And it is the best at that game, whatever its current condition.