The collapse of the ANC vote base in the Western Cape shows no sign of abating. This has led to the inevitable question: can the party ever regain lost ground in the province after years of infighting which has contributed to its decline at the polls?
Last week’s local government election results showed that the ANC failed to win a single municipality outright in the province, and is now banking on coalitions to retain influence. It managed to win one municipality in 2016 as it again struggled to mount a convincing campaign amid the scandals which surrounded the party’s leaders including its then Western Cape chair Marius Fransman who faced sexual harassment accusations, and was subsequently booted from the organisation in 2016.
Across the province, 16 out the 30 municipalities were hung, meaning that there was no outright winner.
Zooming in on the Cape Town metro, one of SA’s wealthiest cities, the ANC recorded another big decline with its electoral support dropping to about 19% from 24% in 2016. The party had 32% support in the 2011 local government polls. It first lost the city in 2006 when the DA with the help of a diverse coalition managed to the gain control which paved the way for Helen Zille to become mayor. The ANC has not recovered since and has continued to haemorrhage votes as the DA maintains its dominance.
As focus turns to the 2024 provincial and national elections, the trends suggest that the ANC will be unable to win the province any time soon.
The party is desperate to win back the Western Cape, the only province it does not govern. It lost the province in 2009 when infighting divided the party along racial lines, and it has been downhill since then.
While the party has suggested that its poor performance in the Western Cape at last week’s municipal polls was largely down to poor voter turnout as rain kept many voters away, its youth wing is singing a different tune.
It said the outcome of the vote is a “clear message from the people that the ANC can no longer afford to delay the thorough rebuilding and renewal process”.
“In the Western Cape, while the DA lost its majority in 15 municipalities it won in 2016, it is disappointing that the ANC failed to capitalise on the weaknesses of the DA and maximise its gains,” the youth league said.
The ANC in the province has not had a stable leadership since the removal of Fransman and is led by an interim provincial committee.
Political analyst Daniel Silke says the ANC’s fortunes in the Western Cape are completely linked to the party’s national performance, and its revival will largely depend on how the national leadership reacts.
“The ANC in the Western Cape has had same problem [unstable leadership] for years. They have lost the crucial coloured vote amid concerns that their interests are not being addressed,” Silke says.
Because coloured people generally make up the majority of the population in the Western Cape, the coloured vote has traditionally been identified as a main factor in elections in the province.
The ANC in the Western Cape has for many years failed to capture the imagination of voters, and its leadership has been “lacklustre and uninspiring”, Silke says.
The ANC faces a big disadvantage at the polls because of its policy of not revealing its mayoral candidates before elections, says Silke adding that a local face of a campaign that resonates or strikes a chord with the electorate is crucial to win extra votes.
“It is old style politics [not revealing the mayoral candidate] ... Personality politics is very important. If you do not come clean on who your mayor is, you are at a disadvantage. It creates an element of mistrust, especially in an environment where service delivery has been lacking and corruption rampant,” Silke says.
Thiven Reddy, the head of the politics department at the University of Cape Town, is of the view that the ANC’s decline in the Western Cape is linked to the rise of voters not compromising on delivery and improved government performance.
“This means that all political parties are likely to be evaluated on this, rather than our traditional values, such as history, ideology, leadership figures and importantly association with ‘the struggle’,” Reddy says.
He says, however, not all hope is lost for the ANC in the Western Cape.
“The ANC has, in all the areas that it governs both national, provincial and local, the prospect of ‘rebuilding’ itself on ‘delivery’ — an area broadly defined for the voter from very material elements (houses, toilets, water, roads and so on) to more complex, structural features like quality schooling and community life.
“If it does really well in these areas, say in the Eastern Cape or Northern Cape, this will give it a ‘re-entry’ to re-establishing a presence in the Western Cape in following elections, so all is not lost for the ANC. In politics there are no certainties and all possibilities are open given the many variable factors.”
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