The ANC — the party of liberation, unchallenged for 27 years — is at a critical point in its long and mostly illustrious history. The realities of governing have found the party deeply wanting as both corrupt and inept.
The trendline of its support is downward, and should it fall below 50% in the total national proportional representation count after the local government election, this trend will probably accelerate.
So, aside from wins and losses, coalition arrangements and whether more cities fall from ANC control to coalitions, there will also be an existential dimension to the outcome of the election for the ANC. While it will still be the biggest party for years to come, a poor result will place its future in jeopardy.
For the first time, several ANC leaders have remarked that the party cannot expect to be in power forever. Northern Cape leader Zamani Saul has stated quite baldly: “The ANC will lose power at some point.” His comment was made on a recent chat forum on social media.
From a high point in 2004, when the ANC polled 69.69%, it hit a low of 54.48% in the local government election in 2016. In 2019, the party got a lift from the Cyril Ramaphosa effect, moving up to 57.5%. The big question is whether the Ramaphosa effect has been sustained over the past two years, during which time citizens’ living conditions have sharply deteriorated and not much has gone right for SA.
Due to Covid-19 and a stagnant, poorly managed economy, unemployment is at a record high of 44% in the broad definition, which includes those who have given up looking for work as among the unemployed. This is a whole nine percentage points more than it was five years ago. Covid-19 deaths have also had a huge effect on families in poor communities where households can easily slip into chronic poverty when a breadwinner dies.
Along with that there’s the continuing deterioration of local government service delivery, with poor communities now experiencing “load reduction” by Eskom — areas where payment levels are low and electricity theft is high. Independent measures show a deteriorating picture in water provision, refuse collection and roads. There can be little argument that for the vast majority of people life has become a great deal harder.
For the ANC, maintaining support above the 50% threshold is psychologically critical when it comes to contesting the 2024 general election. Conversely, it will boost the opposition parties, particularly the EFF, which is expected to be the biggest beneficiary, polls show, should it push the party under 50%.
Falling below 50% in key metros and towns also reduces the ANC’s ability to hand out patronage, as well as secure resources and contracts, and slowly weakens the glue that holds it together.
For markets and investors, the 50% threshold is really the only matter of consequence in this election. A below-50% threshold invites questions that investors worry about: future stability and Ramaphosa’s future in the party.
Which way is this likely to go?
In the metros, there is a clear indication from the polling that in all three of Gauteng’s big cities, as well as Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape, the ANC will again not make 50%. The poll conducted by Victory Research for News 24 has a significant drop for the ANC in eThekwini, but on all modelled turnout scenarios the ANC still squeaks in above 50% in the metro.
None of this is unexpected. Perhaps less expected, given the deterioration of living conditions, at a national level the polls have the ANC on or above 50%. Both Ipsos and the Centre for Risk Analysis projected a 50% voting intention. More recent polls conducted by the parties themselves and others, but not publicly disclosed, have the ANC comfortably above 50%.
Along with deteriorating social conditions, in the three years since Ramaphosa came into office the public has also been hit with a barrage of bad news about the ANC through revelations made at the Zondo commission.
Worse still is that Ramaphosa’s allies themselves have been mired in corruption scandals, profiting in the most cynical and immoral manner from healthcare-related spending, leaving no room left for doubt that the ANC has not cleaned up corruption.
There is little to explain the ANC’s relatively strong showing in the polls other than the Ramaphosa effect. He remains enormously popular, with City Press reporting that the Victory poll found that while the ANC enjoyed 46.4% favourability among the electorate at large, Ramaphosa was at 56.6%. Among minority voters, Ramaphosa was also favoured, with 50% of respondents positive about him.
This is clearly why the ANC has centred its campaign on Ramaphosa, who promises: “We pledge to you, people of SA, we will be better, much better, than in the past”.
And while force of personality is responsible for most of the goodwill towards Ramaphosa, he has also made progress in reforming the ANC, bringing back its respected elders to assist as a brains trust and taking the step of suspending ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, after three years of organisational and leadership paralysis.
With Ramaphosa looking so strong and the ANC all set to win above 50% of votes, the anxieties that both the ANC and outsiders, such as investors, might have about the future can be delayed for now. With regard to internal ANC dynamics, this election looks set to strengthen Ramaphosa enormously, underlining how important it is to have a credible leader after the ANC’s support dived under Jacob Zuma.
The small changes on the margins will still be significant. Most important to watch will be KwaZulu-Natal, where a decline in the ANC’s fortunes since 2014 has been accompanied by a sharp rise in EFF support, from 1.85% in 2014 to 9.71% in 2019. In the aftermath of the July riots and the jailing of Zuma, the province may be ripe for the picking by the EFF, with the ANC province-wide majority possibly under threat in 2024.
While similarly dominant parties in other parts of the world have been pushed out of power eventually, for example, the Indian National Congress, few dominant parties precipitously and suddenly decline and disappear. Rather they frequently follow a path in which they federalise or regionalise.
With the ANC having lost power in the Western Cape some years ago and declines in the metros now a trend, an uneven and regional shrinking looks to be the way the pattern will take shape as its dominance recedes. This is particularly so for as long as Ramaphosa is there to stem the tide.
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