If the Social Research Foundation (SRF) is to be believed, something happened last weekend that tipped polling in a direction people are struggling to explain. Traditionally, in the last couple of weeks running up to an election the big parties such as the ANC and the DA start to squeeze out their smaller rivals. But last weekend, the SRF poll shows a sudden, marked and ongoing decline in ANC support — the only relatable event being the president’s decision to sign the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill into law.
Sources in the DA say the trends reported by the SRF broadly match their own internal polling.
Polling in SA is notoriously difficult and unreliable, and commentators are vulnerable to making fools of themselves by reading too much into it. I certainly find the SRF poll hard to fathom. But I am struck by the possibility that the ANC may have missed how NHI would irritate its middle-class and working-class voters who are members of medical aid schemes. It may have also completely misread NHI’s ability to motivate poor voters.
That the ANC could be taking an electoral hit for jack-booting through such a disgraceful and cynical piece of legislation precisely because it thought it would be politically beneficial is worth more than just a moment of Schadenfreude.
Perhaps the party didn’t foresee that wealthier ANC voters and those who are members of a medical aid through their jobs might take fright at the risk of their healthcare falling into the same disrepair as their local substation or sewerage works. And perhaps the ANC failed to notice that “ANC makes a promise” is a threadbare electoral incentive for people who have been suffering the privation of state collapse. We will know in a week.
The party by its own admission let the country down during the Zuma presidencies, and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s reform programme has been tectonic
Either way, the election requires us to act with intelligence. The decline in the ANC’s base support reflects its recent overall performance. The party by its own admission let the country down during the Zuma presidencies, and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s reform programme has been tectonic. There are still brazen gangsters in his cabinet running critical portfolios in a manner that is unacceptable. Where finance and justice are areas of genuinely good work, energy, logistics, security and education are a mess. It’s not OK.
For those intending to avoid an ANC vote, there remains the question of who. I think it’s important that we look at the geopolitical environment and understand some factors. SA is a vulnerable democracy and yet leading light on a continent that, due to its growth potential, remains a region of contested influence by the big international powers — namely the Western powers led by the US and the EU/UK, and the Brics grouping lead by China, aided by violent and repressive regimes such as Russia and Iran.
While the Western countries will generally exert influence via soft power in the economy and the rules-setting organisations, and among the population, the others will exercise power by any way they can.
In a messy political environment, there are many more entry points into the political system for malign actors. Right now, if you want to erode institutions you have to be friends with the ANC and the corrupt elements within it. Perversely, given that it is a single — if fractured — entity, at least there is a certain hierarchy to the graft.
In a coalition scenario, in which small parties and individuals will wield the power to swing decisions far beyond the weight of their electoral appeal, the enemies of democracy will not only have one potential ally in state capture and institutional decline (elements in the ANC), but a potential tasting menu of rogues for sale.
So, in this environment, voters should look beyond policy and into the parliamentary competence of those we are electing. I’m aware of how deeply unsexy this is, but we really need serious and committed people in the portfolio committees. We’ve had several bills pass parliament recently, the absolutely critical Energy Regulation Amendment Bill among them, and landing up on the president’s desk in such a shoddy state that they risk being sent back to parliament or being thrown out by a court.
The principal miscreant in all of this has been the ANC, whose MPs have generally rubber-stamped bills without seeming to give them too much thought, reducing the relevance of parliament and the democratic process generally. As the ANC’s dominance of politics has declined, and in a highly contested political environment, the flipside of the risks of a fractured body politic is the opportunities for better oversight presented by the very excellent people we could elect.
It’s not as if the existing parties — including small parties — don’t have good parliamentarians. The IFP’s Mkhuleko Hlengwa, who chairs the public accounts committee, is excellent. The DA’s Mimmy Gondwe on the public enterprises committee is vigilant and speaks up, and the ANC’s Yunus Carrim, who has chaired several committees over the years, has been good at listening to civil society. These are high-quality MPs of varied political stripes who appear to be committed to the importance of parliament and its processes.
However, some small parties do not seem to offer much beyond invective and demagoguery. Some crisply define our condition but don’t seem to offer more than political slogans. Some express in fury the legitimate rage of those discarded as trash by our corrupt elite. It sure gets the blood going, but does it read amendments and public comments?
When you make your mark, look at the risks our institutions face and consider voting for the nerds who will read every line of every bill and of every committee minute, will turn up, ask questions, and hold power to account. Rather a lot hangs on it.
• Parker is Business Day editor-in-chief.
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