On Wednesday South Africa held nearly 100 by-elections. The large number of by-elections was because they had all been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting lockdown.
Breathless commentators have reliably informed us that the elections were a disaster for the Democratic Alliance (DA), a result of its (Shock! Horror!) decision to make non-racialism a key pillar of the party and the recent election of (a white man! Shock! Horror!) John Steenhuisen as leader. The African National Congress (ANC) was generally seen as having had a good day, while little was said about the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), although it also had a poor outing.
A word of warning: these by-elections should be used with caution in trying to divine South African election trends. By-elections tend to be a very different beast from general elections or nationwide municipal elections, and turnout is often low. Nevertheless, , even if the best indicator of trends is nationwide elections, they can still be used as a tool in guiding us in how to think about South African election trends.
One cannot argue that the elections were a disaster for the DA. Of the 23 wards it was defending, it lost nine (although it did gain two). It also held onto a number of wards in George by small margins, as its voters there abandoned it for parties such as GOOD, and local interest parties, such as the Plaaslike Besorgde Inwoners (PBI). In George, the DA lost one ward to GOOD and held onto the other three only thanks to splits in the opposition vote. It also lost a ward to the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) in JB Marks (Potchefstroom) in North West, and in a number of other wards it saw a significant loss of votes to its right.
It lost two wards in Johannesburg to the Patriotic Alliance (PA) and Al Jama-ah (respectively).
Maimane
Now, we are assured by the commentariat that this slump in support is because the DA has taken a turn to the right (only in South Africa can a belief that we shouldn’t focus on the race of individuals be interpreted as ‘right wing’), but the fact of the matter is that DA support started sliding under erstwhile leader, Mmusi Maimane. The effects of the Schweizer-Reneke debacle and the DA’s confusion over what kind of party it actually was, already saw its support sliding, which was reflected in last year’s general election results. The party had also already started losing support in by-elections to the FF+ under Maimane’s leadership.
If we are to lay the responsibility for the loss of support in these recent by-elections solely at the door of the DA’s new leadership, then we would have to blame Cyril Ramaphosa for the ANC having its worst ever showing in last year’s election, rather than apportion some of the blame to the trail of destruction left by his predecessor as both country and party president, Jacob Zuma.
Nevertheless, the DA has much introspection to do. It failed to run candidates in wards where it previously had won 40% or more of the vote, a perhaps strange decision, given the evidence of some level of proven DA support in these places. A number of its current and former public representatives also have a bad habit of blaming voters on social media for its poor results.
Not a complete disaster
That said, Wednesday was not a complete disaster. DA support in some wards remained stable and even increased, and it also won two wards. It snatched a ward (where three-quarters of the residents are black) off the ANC in Walter Sisulu municipality (Burgersdorp) in the Eastern Cape. And it won back a ward in Matjhabeng (Welkom) in the Free State, which it had lost in a 2017 by-election to the United Front of Civics.
Overall, the ANC will be fairly happy with its results, but there are early indications that the party will not have it all its own way in next year’s local elections. It defended most wards fairly easily, but lost two (one in the Eastern Cape and one in KwaZulu-Natal). Its results in KwaZulu-Natal will not worry party strategists as yet, but they would do well to keep an eye on the province. The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) seems to be continuing the resurgence that began last year, and its gains in KwaZulu-Natal have come at the expense of the ANC. In three wards in eThekwini (Durban), the IFP saw a significant jump in its support (albeit off a low base). It also won a ward off the ANC in Nkandla, former President Zuma’s home town. In that town, the IFP’s support doubled, from 30% to 60%.
Another area of some concern for the ANC could be the four wards in George. All these wards are wards where Coloured people form the majority and which the DA controlled. As noted, the DA won three of those wards, losing one to GOOD. The DA saw its support decline precipitously in all the wards – but what will concern the ANC is that it was not the beneficiary of these disillusioned DA voters. The ANC, which had previously won between 12% and 15% in 2016 in each of the four wards, saw its support drop to 5% or less in each one. Although this sample is still too small to make any concrete assumptions, it could mean that the ANC is no longer seen as a viable option for many Coloured people in the Western Cape, which could see the party lose even more support in that province (in 2019 the ANC won less than 30% of the Western Cape vote, having governed there before).
Pretty poor day
The EFF, despite its bluster, claiming to be a ‘government-in-waiting’, had a pretty poor day. Although it saw its vote share in some wards grow, in others it barely improved on its 2016 showing and, in places, performed worse. For some reason it decided to contest every ward, even in areas where it had very little chance of making any impact, something not even the ANC attempted. In fact, in a by-election in Ward 3 in Hantam in the Northern Cape, the EFF candidate failed to win a single vote. A revolutionary feat indeed!
That said, it is testimony to the party’s energy and determination that it put up a candidate in every ward.
The EFF gave the ANC a scare in one or two wards, but overall the Grand Old Party of South Africa managed to see off EFF challenges fairly easily.
The PA and Al Jama-ah will both be happy with their results, each having won a ward off the DA in Johannesburg, giving each party its first ward seat in the municipality (each previously held one proportional representation seat). Sources indicate that the PA’s colourful leader, Gayton McKenzie, poured significant resources into Ward 68 in Johannesburg, and he was rewarded with a win.
However, neither party can say that their wins were overwhelming. Al Jama-ah won Johannesburg Ward 9 with 31% of the vote, with the DA winning 22% and an independent winning almost 30%. In ward 68, the PA won with 37% of the vote, also hardly an overwhelming mandate, and not too far ahead of the ANC candidate’s 33%.
FF+ will also be happy
The FF+ will also be happy with how it did, winning a ward off the DA, and siphoning off large proportions of the vote in DA strongholds. It will be confident that it can continue its surge, which became evident last year with white Afrikaners (and perhaps other minorities) increasingly seeing it as the party best placed to protect their interests.
In the final analysis, the by-elections were a rebuke for the DA, but it is too simplistic to blame this on John Steenhuisen and Helen Zille. The local government elections next year will give us a clearer view of how voters feel about the party. Nevertheless, the DA should be worried by what seems to be an exodus of Coloured and white Afrikaner voters, the latter having been an especially solid voting bloc for the party in the past two decades.
The ANC juggernaut continues to lumber along. Although there are no warning lights for the party as yet, there are some areas which it would do well to monitor, particularly its performance in the Western Cape and in KwaZulu-Natal. The EFF always seems to be on the verge of a breakthrough and the ANC will likely also be watching its estranged offspring with some trepidation.
By-elections are not the best tools to determine political trends, but they can give a valuable insight to the lay of the land. As it stands now, we can expect some of the same – an almost unbeatable ANC, a yapping EFF. The one new phenomenon is a declining DA, which has, almost without fail, advanced in every post-apartheid election.
But if a week is a long time in politics, a year is even longer – much can happen between now and 2021’s local government elections. Perhaps we should listen to Monty Python and expect the unexpected.
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