It was no surprise that one theme dominated reactions to the local government elections that were held on Monday. That was the apparent level of voter apathy, with the country recording its lowest turnout in any elections since the advent of democracy.
As results come in, the dominant topic of discussion will be the likelihood of the ANC’s support slipping below 50% for the first time, something that would have been barely imaginable when it won a two-thirds majority in 2004.
With the run-up to the polls dominated by service delivery — or a lack of it — and load-shedding, it should come as no surprise that voters punished the ruling party. It signals a maturing electorate that has defied expectations that it would forever be imprisoned by racial and historical loyalties.
Much is still to be written about what this means for the ANC and its prospects in the national elections due in 2024. And much will be said about the implications for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s “reform” agenda, and even his prospects of winning a second term as ANC president in 2022.
His predecessor Jacob Zuma was blamed for the decline that saw the party lose control of metros such as Johannesburg and Tshwane in Gauteng, as well as Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape. At the time of writing, counting was under way and these, and some others, were all still in play.
Slipping to just under 55% in the 2016 local polls as Zuma’s corruption-tainted rule turned off even diehard ANC supporters was seen as enough of a disaster to demonstrate to party leaders the need for change.
Then came Ramaphosa’s narrow victory at Nasrec, and he was personally credited by some, most famously by head of elections Fikile Mbalula, of single-handedly lifting the ANC to 58% in the national elections. Never mind that this was the first time that the party had dropped below 60%, there were fears that the outcome would be a lot worse if Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, seen as a continuity candidate from Zuma, had prevailed.
Much of SA’s immediate prospects will ride on how the ANC responds to this chastening judgment from voters. It will be a disaster if it sees it as a reason to show even less ambition on pushing the reforms needed to get the economy on a sustainable growth path.
The reformers should be encouraged by the fact that voters did not exactly show themselves to be seduced by easy populist solutions, with Julius Malema’s EFF doing worse this time than it did in the 2019 national poll, and likely to improve only slightly from 2016.
The ANC and the DA look set to have a combined share of almost 70%, with the former still more than twice as big as its main rival, which has also shed support relative to 2016, despite fighting a bleeding opponent that was tearing itself up.
The ruling party is definitely in decline with its traditional base deflated, but it is far from dead. The question is whether it will learn the correct lessons.
The results don’t indicate an electorate that is crying out for a populist revolution and has rejected the need for reform. The opposite is true. There is no glorious pre-Nasrec path that the electorate is nostalgic for.
The ANC is being rightfully punished for a failure to deliver on the promise of a different direction. And this was as clear in the turnout as it is in the results. Black voters who would normally vote for the ANC showed disillusionment with the dysfunction they experience daily, and once again stayed away.
Some of them may well not be concerned about how long it takes the government to allocate spectrum, but they know about lights that don’t work, rubbish that piles up on their streets and potholes that are not fixed.
Reform or prepare for more of the same, that is the message they have sent the ruling party.
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