RICHARD CALLAND | DA faces uphill fight for Joburg majority

The local government elections on November 4 could become known as the gatvol election, especially in Johannesburg.

In many ways the DA’s mayoral candidate, Helen Zille, is the archetypal gatvol candidate. She thrives on a big challenge, and Johannes burg is exactly that.

But can she actually win? It has been clear for a while that the DA will secure the most council seats in Johannesburg but fall short of a majority. Forty percent appeared to be the likely ceiling; gaining the additional votes in council to get to 51% would be a big ask.

This was the prevailing base case scenario ― the ultimate pyrrhic victory. Shades of 2006, when Zille was severely disgruntled with me (not for the last time) when I pointed out that you only really “win” in politics when you get a majority and can form a government alone.

In Cape Town 20 years ago, with 42% of the council seats, it was easier for Zille to bridge the gap and form what she more accurately claimed was South Africa’s first coalition government. Far harder this time in Johannesburg, chiefly because the other main parties would rather die in a ditch than do a deal with Zille.

Anything above 40% for the DA in Johannesburg would be a surprise. But every now and then elections do deliver shock results. Usually it requires the presence of three primary factors: the collapse of incumbent legitimacy (check, the ANC is in freefall); turnout differential (check, the DA is consistently better at getting its vote out); and economic lived experience (check, the decline of Johannesburg self-evidently affects everyone who lives there ― the gatvol factor).

Together they represent a sine qua non for a Zille victory, because given how much of a “marmite” character she is, it will require more than her indomitable spirit to convince voters that she can address Johannesburg’s myriad woes.

For a politician who has in the past suffered from strange bouts of ill-discipline, Zille is running a focused and disciplined campaign in Johannesburg. She has been persuaded to avoid ruminating on matters such as the effect of colonisation, and has concentrated her messaging on the things that matter to most Joburgers ― potholes, water supply and infrastructural decline.

So a shock outcome where the DA gets close enough to 50% to be able to get over the line into City Hall in alliance with a group of smaller parties is now on the cards. This would be an important moment for Johannesburg’s governance, but a potentially game-changing one for South Africa’s electoral politics.

Psephology tells us that who a voter identifies with is the most important indicator of future voting trends. Hence, the ANC benefited for a long time from high levels of voter identification due to its role in the struggle for democracy. Afrobarometer’s long-running surveys show that party identification has historically been heavily racialised and, moreover, that the racial structure has persisted despite collapsing confidence in the ANC.

It found that the proportion of voters who felt close to the ANC fell from 52% in 2006 to 29% in 2018 yet electoral support declined far more slowly. Even among people who had voted ANC in 2014, 44% were dissatisfied with its government performance by 2019 but many did not regard opposition parties as trustworthy alternatives.

This is crucial. It suggests that racial identity often operates not as a crude preference ― “I vote ANC because I am black” ― but as a heuristic about whose interests a party represents.

There is ample evidence of a loosening of the relationship between race and party identification in recent years, but the “shock” occurs when a long-building shift finally crosses an electoral threshold.

New DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis will recognise that Zille’s performance in November may determine whether his own ambition to one day occupy the Union Buildings is anything more than a pipe dream. Depending on whether she can actually fix things quickly enough should she become mayor, Zille could truly break the mould.

• Calland is a founding partner of political economy advisory The Paternoster Group and visiting adjunct professor at the Wits School of Governance.