Much ink is being spilled – not only here at the Daily Friend but elsewhere – on the fact that the ANC is perilously close to losing its majority at the next general election, scheduled for 2024.
Much thought is being given to what the political landscape will look like after 2024. The ANC could well maintain its majority or continue to govern as a minority government. At the same time, South Africa’s first non-ANC post-apartheid government could also be closer than we think, and thought is being given to which parties are likely to make up a new governing coalition, and what policies should be implemented once the ANC is finally turfed out at the ballot box. Eyes will also be on the EFF, as they could be kingmakers if the ANC fails to get above 50% in the next election. Will they give life support to the wounded buffalo or will the EFF help a coalition of opposition parties make a kill?
However, as the comments section here at the Daily Friend attests, many people believe that anyone thinking that the Grand Old Party of South African politics could lose an election, and subsequently leave peacefully, should be taken away by some nice men in white coats and confined to a padded cell somewhere.
A scenario where the ANC does not leave peacefully is a real one, but at the same time this does not mean that we should not consider the (in my opinion more likely) scenario that the party will indeed slink off with its tail between its legs when the voters decide to chuck the rascals out.
But how likely is it that we will see the ANC copy its sister party across the Limpopo, ZANU-PF, and refuse to leave office, either through blatant theft of an election or through the use of violence (as Robert Mugabe did in 2008).
South African elections
South African elections in the post-apartheid era have largely been free and fair. Of course, there have been irregularities, but there is practically universal consensus that election results have broadly reflected the will of the South African people. But will that remain the case in 2024?
South Africa already has a fairly robust culture of election observation, with party agents often monitoring the election process, as well as the counting process. Widespread and outright rigging is probably not a significant risk.
What is likely to pose a bigger threat than outright election rigging is simply poor administration and lack of resources. As with most things that are funded by the South African state, financial resources available to the IEC are dwindling. This could have serious implications for the management of the 2024 elections as well as training of election officials. Linked to this is the issue of human error which, anecdotally at least, has been a steadily growing problem in this country’s elections.
Michael Atkins, an independent election analyst, has uncovered some major errors in how voting results have been captured in a number of elections. In last year’s local government elections, although errors were not enough to materially change results in any municipalities, they often did result in a political party gaining a seat unfairly, or, conversely, being denied a seat it was entitled to.
The Daily Friend’s sister organisation, the Freedom Advocacy Network, played a key role in ensuring that the seat count in Ramotshere Moiloa municipality in North West was amended, to ensure that the Forum for Democrats were assigned a seat they had been denied because of human error. The seat had erroneously been assigned to the EFF.
Violence
But what about the issue of violence?
While ten years ago the sight of an ANC administration being turfed out at the ballot box was an unusual sight, it has, in recent times, become a much more common occurrence. Voters across the country have ‘chucked the rascals out’ in a swathe of municipalities, primarily in Gauteng, Western Cape, and northern KwaZulu-Natal. That said, the opposition has also established beachheads in places where it would have been almost unthinkable that the ANC would no longer be in government, such as Modimolle-Mookgophong (Nylstroom) and Thabazimbi in Limpopo.
And the ANC has accepted these losses and moved to the opposition benches.
However, there is a ‘but…’
Where the ANC has lost power it has engaged in numerous ‘dirty tricks’ campaigns to undermine opposition administrations. Helen Zille recounts in her very readable biography, Not Without A Fight, how the ANC tried to undermine the opposition coalition which took charge of Cape Town in 2006, under her mayorship, something which she says is now happening in Nelson Mandela Bay, as that city seems on the brink of also falling to an opposition coalition.
The undermining in those instances has generally been in the guise of some form of ‘lawfare.’ This has taken the forms of attempting to change how a municipality is governed or threatening to place municipalities governed by the opposition under provincial administration.
More sinisterly, it seems clear that much of the infrastructure destruction in, for example, the Western Cape, is directed by elements in the ANC. And we are seeing this play out in uMngeni, the DA-run municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands. The DA in the province has claimed that ANC-branded vehicles have been seen ferrying people to protests, which have seen roads blocked and infrastructure destroyed in the municipality. The party also claimed that it had evidence that ANC officials were giving food parcels to protestors.
The current unrest in Tembisa is also allegedly being driven by elements of the ANC who are trying to destabilise the East Rand municipality of Ekurhuleni, which is also being governed by a DA-led coalition.
National level
Of course, losing power at the national level is vastly more significant than losing power in a municipality or a province, and it is quite possible that it will be far more difficult to persuade the ANC to leave the President’s office in the Union Buildings than it has been to persuade the party to hand over the mayoral chain.
This may be wishful thinking on this writer’s part, but a ZANU-PF scenario – where there is blatant and outright cheating coupled with much violence to stay in power – is fairly unlikely. While ZANU-PF and the ANC are certainly sister organisations, with much in common in terms of ideology and history, they are also different in many ways, and South Africa is also a very different country from Zimbabwe, despite our many similarities.
Some will also point to the ‘People’s War,’ that period in the 1970s and 1980s when the ANC violently suppressed any black resistance to it, expertly documented by my senior colleague, Dr Anthea Jeffery. Some will say we should expect a People’s War II as the ANC loses power, but this is unlikely. The ANC has lost much of its moral authority and paradoxically it is now probably a much less confident organisation than it was when it was banned and seen by many as the natural leader of South Africa. This is no longer the case – increasingly many people see the ANC for what it now is, a moribund political party that is out of ideas and out of time, not some sacred liberation movement leading the people of this country to glorious sunlit uplands. Any attempt to start People’s War II in an attempt to stay in power may simply not be feasible.
An ANC out of power will, initially at least, work to undermine a new government as much as possible. This will take the form of protests and destruction of infrastructure, as has been common in the Western Cape, and now in municipalities governed by the opposition. At the same time, even if the ANC is toppled at national level, it is quite likely that a majority of the nine provinces will still have ANC administrations (on current trends only the Western Cape, Gauteng, and KwaZulu-Natal will not be governed by the ANC after 2024, even if the party fails to secure a national majority). Expect hostile relations between an opposition-controlled centre (and National Assembly) and ANC administrations (and an ANC-controlled National Council of Provinces) across the country.
In addition, much of the civil service will be ANC loyalists, who will work to undermine any efforts of the new government to reform. By the same token, many other civil servants will be professionals who will work to implement the policy agenda of whoever happens to be in government at the time.
However you slice it, the opposition will have its work cut out for it.
We cannot predict the future but we can determine a future path through what has come before. And both possibilities could happen – an ANC that cheats or simply refuses to leave office when it loses, as well as one which accepts the results of an open election and slinks off to the opposition benches. South Africans should prepare for both eventualities.
[Image: https://www.anc1912.org.za/0]
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