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INTRODUCTION
People power is on the move in South Africa. Jacob Zuma and his merry band (who rob the poor to pay the rich) may view the unfolding events (which are happening at lightning speed) to be more “counter-revolutionary” than revolutionary, but then again they fail to realise that what goes around comes around.
Thankfully, the country is experiencing a soft, civil revolution, where law-abiding citizens from all walks of life are rising to the occasion in support of the country’s constitutional democracy - a situation eminently more preferable than a hard revolution, fuelled by empty stomachs, idle hands, and hardened hearts (elements of which are present in the #FeesMustFall movement).
For years, sparks of disquiet have flown here and there, but nothing ignited the nation’s imagination more than on the 31 of March 2016, when the Constitutional Court delivered its landmark judgement to the country and to the respondents (notably President Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, Speaker of the National Assembly, the Minister of Police, and the Public Protector). Zuma had violated the Constitution. Zuma had violated his oath of office. Zuma had acted illegally. Zuma had taken the law into his own hands. Zuma had acted unethically. And the people’s parliament, the National Assembly were equally as guilty. The danger SA faced was now writ large for all to see.
Society’s push back for democracy was clearly evident in the 2016 local government elections (LGE), where X marked the spot of protest. The true extent of SA’s poll-vault is provided in Part 1, which goes beyond just the three metros. Part 2 reads the mind of the voter, literally. Part 3 reveals the ugly face of impunity. Part 4 isolates the source of all of SA’s current woes, for which Zuma is but a bit part. And Part 5 reveals Zuma’s snakes-and-ladder strategy.
Come what may, South Africa will never be the same again, for better or worse (but chances are for the better).
PART 1: THE NATION HAD ITS SAY
The ANC lost governance of the major metros of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay, while being forced to scrape together a coalition to retain Ekurhuleni, and had its minority status in Cape Town deteriorate further, to the gain of the largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA). But that is not the full extent of the ANC’s election losses.
THE URBANITE HAS SPOKEN
Out of twenty-seven South African cities (eight metros and nineteen secondary cities) the ANC received 47% (or 4.0 million) of the vote, while, collectively, the opposition garnered 53% (or 4.4 million). Thus, on average, the ANC is no longer the majority party in urban areas across the country. [See Note 1]
In comparison, the opposition, as a collective, achieved the following results:
THE RURAL DWELLER HAS SPOKEN
Having lost the majority of urban voters, the ANC is increasingly reliant on rural votes for their support. In the 2016LGE, the ANC captured nearly two-thirds of the rural vote, with 64% (or 4.1 million), while the opposition trailed with 36% (or 2.4 million). [See Note 2]
However, even in the ANC’s pastoral stronghold, the party’s support stalled, while the opposition made significant inroads.
Between 2011 and 2016, the opposition grew its rural support by 30% (or 548 000 votes), compared with ANC’s meagre 1.5% (or 61 000 votes). Thus, out of the total 2016 rural votes cast, the ANC‘s support declined by 5.5% to 64%, while the opposition climbed by the same margin to 36%.
In comparison, the opposition obtained the following:
“On the one hand, the ANC did maintain its hold on power in the rural areas… But a closer look at the results suggest that, in fact, its 'grip' on power may well be slipping, and faster than anyone has hitherto appreciated or thought was even possible.” (Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa, by Nathan Dufour and Richard Calland)
THE NATION HAS SPOKEN
Nationally, the ANC lost 281 000 votes of its traditional support base in 2016, (dropping from 8.4 million votes in 2011 to 8.1 million votes), while in stark contrast, the opposition gained 1.8 million votes (climbing from 5.0 million votes in 2011 to 6.8 million in 2016).
Below is a breakdown of the changes in votes for the ANC from 2011 to 2016 by province:
The ANC enjoyed the largest gain of votes from KZN, but a case could be made that the ANC’s gains in KZN for 2016LGE were exaggerated, because of an anomalous event.
The National Freedom Party (NFP), having failed in all but a few areas to register for the 2016LGE, encouraged its supporters – the vast majority of whom reside in KZN – to vote for the ANC. Thus the ANC’s results for the province could be construed as being greatly assisted by an ANC-NFP coalition, with the NFP being a silent partner - so to speak - for an estimated 40% of its members who heeded the call to vote for the ANC. The remaining 60% went mainly to the DA and IFP, resulting in 143 600 votes in opposition’s favour. [Note 3]
Below are the results for the opposition countrywide.
STAY-AWAY or GO-AWAY
Some have postulated that the ANC’s electoral slump from 62.1% in 2014 to 54.5% in 2016, was due to over three million of its supporters staying away from the polls.
This claim originated from the fact that 8.1 million voters supported the ANC in the 2016LGE, while 11.4 million ANC voters voted in the 2014 national government election (NGE), and so there were 3.3 million ANC no-shows.
So what happened to a substantial number of ANC’s voting X-men (and women)?
It is true that 3.3 million less ANC supporters voted in the in the 2016LGE compared to 2014NGE, but the same occurred in the 2011LGE compared with the 2009NGE. Thus, 3.3 million ANC voters tend not to vote in local elections compared to national elections. It is a mutation of ANC voting behaviour - and of the SA voter in general - and which may be alluding to voter dissatisfaction with local government, a lack of voter education, or simply cannot be bothered to vote.
Below is the change in the number of ANC voters as elections alternate between local and national:
Since 2009, ANC’s support has undulated through the election cycle along a horizontal band, with a consistent drop of 3.3 million voters when going from a national election to a local one. So that explains why the 2016LGE had 3.3 million less ANC voters – it is just that they generally do not participate in local elections.
In 2009 and 2011 the ANC break-away party, the Congress of the People (COPE) contested the elections for the first time, both nationally and locally. And in 2014 and 2016 the ANC break-away party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), contested their first local and national elections. However, both parties did not cause a major decline in the ANC’s traditional voter base. That is not to say they were not detrimental to the ANC, especially the EFF.
Millions more voted for the ANC in the national elections of 2009 than the local elections of 2011, and the same can be said for the 2014 national elections versus the 2016 local elections, and yet the ANC’s national election results did not spike (see table below). In fact the ANC has failed to arrest its overall decline of 11.2% since 2006.
The graphic below shows that with each passing local-national election combination since 2006, the ANC has taken a step down the ladder of power.
To explain the ANC’s step-wise descent, one has to consider the ANC’s mirror-image nemesis, namely that of the opposition.
So, on reflection, the opposition has been climbing the rungs of power with each passing local-national election duo, to the detriment of the ANC; which proves that politics is a double-edged sword for the combatants, but the voter remains king.
Opposition’s upsurge has therefore been large enough to counteract the three million additional ANC voters who turnout to vote on national election day. Below is a graphic of opposition’s support base.
The trend for the opposition is clearly upward, as opposed to the horizontal movement of the liberation movement. But the opposition’s lines are converging, so the question is whether they are heading for a ceiling of support, or if they will break out, and then skies the limit.
The alternating pattern between national and local elections is evident for opposition supporters, as it is for the ANC; but in the 2016LGE this pattern was broken for the opposition, with the number of voters in 2016 practically equalling those in the 2014NGE (7.0 million versus 6.8 million), despite millions less voting in the 2016LGE (as per the norm for local elections). This may be reflective of resistance to opposition growth.
On the other hand, between the national elections of 2009 and 2014, the opposition climbed 1 million votes from 6 million to 7 million, while the ANC declined marginally by 200 000 votes, from 11.6 million to 11.4 million. And for local elections - as shown - the opposition added 1.8 million votes, while the ANC lost 281 000 votes between the 2011 and 2016 LGEs. This means that the ANC lost in all 281 000 votes from its traditional base between 2009 and 2016, first with 210 000 in the 2011 national election, and an additional 71 000 in the 2016 local election. The ANC’s traditional support base is being slowly eroded with each election; the question is whether these losses are a just chip off the old block, or if they signal the development of a fault line in the party’s foundations.
Because of the ANC’s horizontal pattern, the opposition’s support is on the whole not coming from the ANC’s traditional support base. It is being driven by the voting dynamics of SA.
SA’s population is forever rising, and by extension the voter-age population (VAP) is buoyed up, together with those who register to vote, and ultimately this elevates the number of people who turnout to vote with each successive election (the local-national behaviour notwithstanding). See the graphic below.
So the main contributing factor in the ANC’s electoral deterioration is that its support base has not grown in seven years. As a result, the party is now starting to feel the effects of years of compounding dis-interest from an inflationary voter population, who are increasingly throwing their weight behind the opposition.
In the 2019, there will be approximately 1.2 million more registered voters than in 2016. There are also some tantalising signs that the stay-away party may be losing some of its support. This was evident in the 2016LGE, where for the first time in SA’s election history, not only did the ANC lose to the opposition’s gain, but simultaneously the stay-away party also gave some of its support to the opposition. Which raises the possibility that the sleeping giant of the non-voter is waking up to the clamouring of democracy.
MAJORITY RULE
Much attention is given to those who turnout to vote (such as the earlier results tables). However, it is sobering to consider that despite the ANC obtaining majority party status in the 2014 national election, by winning 62.1% of votes cast, in actuality only 33% of the voting age population (VAP) voted for the governing party. [Note 6]
The largest party in the 2014 national election was the stay-away party, securing 46% or 16 million voters out of 34.7 million of the VAP [Note 7] - which is a poor reflection on all political parties.
An Ipsos/eNCA poll conducted one month prior to the 2016LGE found that 44% agreed with the statement, “There is no political party that represents my views.” Moreover, 57% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “The ANC has lost its “moral compass””; 52% agreed that the DA “talks a lot, but does very little for people like me”; and 65% agreed that “the EFF’s policies are too radical”[7].)
If one goes further and includes the voiceless (politically speaking) of those citizens who are under voting age, the ANC’s 2014 ‘majority’ dwindles to 21%, or 11.4 million ANC voters out of the then 54 million SA citizens [Note 8].
Thus, although elections are a large and accurate opinion poll, it remains just a sample of the country’s total population. That is why politicians who win the privilege of governing the nation must place the country’s interest’s first before their own, because invariably they will not be supported by the ‘majority’ of citizens, but are only ‘representatives’ of the true majority, including the powerless and the voiceless.
In conclusion: from local to national, rural to urban, poor to working class, the ANC has failed to rise with the tide: Does this mean it will it be swept away in 2019?
SELF-IMPOSED LIMITS
Prince Mashele wrote in the Sowetan that, “The ANC is trapped between ruralism and urbanism. These two forces are fighting for the soul of the party, and currently ruralism is the strongest force in the ANC. While the party promises better life for all, it has a complicated relationship with the middle class, a class that, ironically, manifests the ANC’s success. In the long term, the future of the ANC will depend on which force triumphs over the other – ruralism or urbanism?”[8]
The question therefore arises of what the rural/urban war within the ANC may mean for the 2019 national elections and beyond.
Local government elections works on a constituency-based voting system; however, for national elections, a simple countrywide majority affords the winning political party the privilege of governing South Africa in national government. So, for a party to attain the top tier of power, it is not important where the voter lives - be it in urban or rural areas, or in this or that province – but rather who the voter votes for en masse.
(Some, including the late Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, have proposed electoral reforms which would extend the dual list voting system used in local government elections to national government, so that, as Tim Cohen wrote in Business day, “Then, at least, we would have a group of parliamentarians who would be responsible, once elected, first and foremost to their constituency rather than to the party bosses.”[9] [10][11])
Currently there are 14.6 million South Africans living in urban areas who are registered to vote, compared with 11.8 million rural dwellers. Moreover, 8.4 million urban votes were cast in 2016, while 6.5 million rural voters made their mark. The World Bank estimated that 65% of South Africans lived in urban areas in 2015[12], one of the highest ratios in Africa[13].
So by every measure, urban dominance is clear. And this disparity is set to widen due to escalating urbanisation. (The United Nations estimated that 71.3% of the SA population will live in urban areas in 2030, and nearly 80% in 2050[14].)
In addition, although the number of people registering to vote grows from election to election, rural dwellers choosing to exercise that right to vote appears not to be growing as fast.
In the 2016LGE, 75 000 (-0.6%) less rural voters turned out to vote than one would have expected, considering the growth in registered voting numbers. While in the cities, 144 000 (+1%) more urban voters cast their ballot, over and above the growth in registered voters. Thus the apathy and/or disillusionment of the rural voter is evident, as opposed to the active urban voter.
So, besides the cities having a larger VAP than the rural areas, urbanites participate more where it counts politically, namely at the ballot box.
All of this does not bode well for the ANC if it wishes to pursue a mainly rural agenda.
But that is not all. The division of SA into rural and urban regions is fast disappearing, as deputy minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Andries Nel, explained in 2015, “Urban areas are dynamically linked to rural areas - flows of people‚ natural and economic resources. Urban and rural areas are becoming increasingly integrated‚ as a result of better transport‚ communications and migration.”[15]
Be that as it may, the ruralists within the ANC leadership seem prepared to not only forsake the ever-expanding urban voter, but under Jacob Zuma - the chieftain amongst the ruralists - the ANC’s appeal is being curtailed even further, towards the isiZulu speaking voter, at the expense of all the other home-language groups.
William Gumede wrote in BusinessDay, “Many of Zuma’s appointments to senior positions, both in the government and his party — especially those in the security networks — are individuals from KwaZulu-Natal. Critics warn of the danger of the "Zulufication" of the ANC.” As a result, Gumede observed that, “People from other groups are likely to resent their exclusion and oppose government policies, decisions and actions, believing they are ethnicity-driven. This could paralyse the ANC and the government, and have a further effect on the governing party’s ability to deliver public services.”[16]
The 2016LGE exhibited the effects of ANC’s skewed ethnic bias, for when one excludes KZN – where approximately 75% of isiZulu speaking people reside[17] - the party’s results deteriorate considerably in respect of the rest of the country.
Putting KZN cities aside, the ANC’s urban vote loss of 342 000 countrywide worsens to 419 000. And as to rural support, without KZN the ANC’s overall gain of 60 700 votes evaporates to become a loss of 145 400 votes.
These results seem to suggest that the ANC should do everything in its power to hold on to KZN because it is ameliorating the party’s countrywide fall, but these votes are likely being won at the expense of support in the other eight provinces because of perceived favouritism.
The 2011 Census found that 22.4% of SA’s population spoke isiZulu as their home language[18]. Thus by ethnicity alone - irrespective of whether the isiZulu-speaker resides in a rural or urban setting - Zuma’s vision of SA and the centre of power for the ANC again results in the party targeting a minority of support, by excluding 77.6% of the other ten language-speakers of SA. “Zuma’s ethnic politics may shape the ANC’s future, with a national election approaching in 2019,”[19] Gumede warned. Zuma, however, seems unconcerned that his party is failing to appeal to the majority of SA citizens, which shows a disregard for SA’s democratic principles.
Hence, if the ANC continues to restrict itself to the rural, isiZulu vote, and relinquishes the urban voter and ten other language-speaking communities to the opposition, it will inevitably lead to political power-shedding, whereby the ANC will be reduced to being a narrow-interest area-specific party, incapable of achieving the majority needed for national government. “It may seem self-evident that the ANC cannot allow itself to become a party that governs solely at national level, in KwaZulu-Natal, and in small, poor and rural provinces,”[20] said Anthony Butler (a professor who teaches public policy at UCT) [Business Day].
Whether Zuma and his ruralist league wish to recognise it or not, South Africa is a rainbow nation – or whatever term you wish to use to illuminate the fact that we are a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-class, multi-everything country. It is part of our charm.
LOOK OUT FOR PART 2 OF THIS SERIES TO BE PUBLISHED SOON EXCLUSIVELY ON RDM
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7] http://www.ipsos.co.za/SitePages/Election%20Outlook_Poll%20of%20polls.aspx The survey also predicted the 2016LGE results, which were remarkably accurate for countrywide party-specific support: http://www.ipsos.co.za/_layouts/15/start.aspx#/SitePages/Ipsos%20pre-election%20forecasting%20on%20the%20mark%20nationally.aspx
[8] http://www.rdm.co.za/politics/2016/04/18/why-the-ruling-party-should-let-anc-gauteng-take-the-wheel
[10] http://www.rdm.co.za/politics/2016/05/10/zuma-has-just-proved-that-the-constitution-is-not-supreme
[11] http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/electoral-system-needs-overhaul-1413064
[12] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locations=ZA
[13] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/opinion/a-seismic-shock-for-jacob-zuma.html?_r=0
[14] http://www.rdm.co.za/politics/2015/05/26/new-figures-show-staggering-rate-of-urbanisation-in-sa
[15] http://www.rdm.co.za/politics/2015/05/26/new-figures-show-staggering-rate-of-urbanisation-in-sa
[16] http://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2016-10-19-ethnic-nationalism-zumas-style-of/
[19] http://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2016-10-19-ethnic-nationalism-zumas-style-of/
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