Support for the ANC in Johannesburg is bottoming out — and there is seemingly little the party can do to arrest it.
Election analyst Dawie Scholtz has picked up some fascinating trends in by-elections ahead of the local government election next year that point to potential disaster for the ANC.
First, the rise of former president Jacob Zuma’s MK party directly contributed to the ANC’s 17 percentage point decline in support nationally, whittling its majority support down to 40% in last year’s general election for the first time in three decades.
MK has been chaotic internally and in parliament, but its performance in by-elections paints a vastly different picture. Scholtz tells Business Day that countrywide MK is performing better in by-elections than it did in its maiden electoral appearance last year.
It is also breaking out of dominating just the “Zulu vote”. For instance, in a recent by-election in Sebokeng it obtained 25% of the vote in an area in which only 9% of voters were Zulu speaking.
Similarly, in a ward in Nelson Mandela Bay, Eastern Cape, among the ANC’s remaining strongholds, it obtained about 15% of the vote in an area with no Zulu speakers.
Turning to the ANC, Scholtz says the party’s support among black urban voters is down by double digits. Among township voters the turnout trend remains low, and in suburbs the ANC has essentially flatlined.
“So suburban turnout high — suburban ANC percentage next to zero. Township turnout low — ANC township percentage was already low and now it’s low minus 10%-plus.
“If you put all of those ingredients together it’s disastrous for the ANC … as I was running sort of simulations of the models last night, it puts the ANC in Joburg between 20 and 25% of the vote,” he says.
Former supporters who have abandoned the ANC appear to be defecting to a range of competing parties, including MK, the EFF, ActionSA and even the DA. This could mean the DA emerging as the largest party in Joburg. The ANC obtained 33.6% of the vote in 2021 and the DA came in second at 26%.
Whatever the details, Joburg is set to remain in coalition territory, with current DA federal executive chair Helen Zille vying for the post of mayoral candidate in the party’s internal mayoral selection process.
There are ways the ANC could restore its support in the city, but it would be a steep hill to climb given the extent of its decline. The first would be MK collapsing, which many predicted would occur shortly after last year’s election. Yet a year on it remains a destabilising force for the ANC.
Another potential game-changer would be if the ANC was able to show signs of turning around the economic and governance outcomes in the city and in Gauteng — but again, this is an unlikely scenario.
Joburg and Gauteng are led by populists with little capacity to deliver real change. Mayor Dada Morero even warned on taking office more than two years ago that he would be unable to improve things before the next local election.
Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi could make some headway, given his penchant for jumping on populist bandwagons, including ethnic nationalism or cracking down on illegal immigration, but he has shown little capacity to improve service delivery in the province since taking office three years ago.
A coalition tie-up between the ANC, MK and smaller parties could be another path back to power for the ANC in the city. While this may be the most logical move it would arguably be the most damaging for the ANC in the medium to long term, with Zuma making no secret of his desire to effect a “reverse takeover” of the party.
What is clear is that the decline the ANC registered in 2024 was part of a long-coming reckoning rather than an isolated “setback”.
• Marrian is Business Day editor-at-large.
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