Enough black voters have stayed loyal to the ANC in local elections to boost Jacob Zuma’s hopes of a second presidential term

In spite of many failures in governance and widespread anger among its supporters, the ruling African National Congress decisively won the municipal elections on 18 May. Popular discontent about the corruption, incompetence and indifference of the ANC’s leaders was not enough to tip core voters into rival political camps. President Jacob Zuma emerged with stronger prospects of winning re-election as party leader next year.

The ANC’s share of the vote fell from 66% in 2006 to around 63.5%. The Democratic Alliance (DA) increased its share from 16% to about 22%. The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) took 3.94%, the National Freedom Party 2.58% and the Congress of the People (COPE) 2.33%. The DA increased its support in eight out of nine provinces, while the ANC’s declined in every province except KwaZulu-Natal, where it and the new NFP took votes from the IFP. The ANC won the big cities of Johannesburg, Pretoria (Tshwane), Durban, Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth (Mandela Bay), but the DA took Cape Town and most of the councils in Western Cape. Voter turnout was 57.6%, the highest for a local government election since 1994.

 COPE collapsed, splitting into factions led by Mbhazima ‘Sam’ Shilowa and Mosiuoa ‘Terror’ Lekota. Shilowa’s faction even asked its members not to vote for COPE. Inkatha also split: National Chairwoman Zanele Magwaza-Msibi formed her own National Freedom Party after veteran leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi refused to step down. In most municipalities the ANC’s margin was cut, and in some it may have to govern in coalition. KwaZulu-Natal has 12 hung municipalities, including Nkandla, Zuma’s home town, where no party has a decisive majority. The ANC has approached the NFP about forming local coalitions. The DA and COPE are also considering a national partnership pact for local coalitions, we hear. Although the ANC’s bedrock black constituents are angry with its performance in government, they are emotionally attached to the party. They still believe that a ‘black’ party with liberation credentials will be more responsive to the ‘black’ issues of unemployment, poverty and homelessness.

The DA is too white

Attacks on the DA as a ‘white’ party that delivers effective services only to whites still have resonance. The DA struggled to change the perception among poor black South Africans of a party dominated by white interests. However, despite the DA’s PR makeover, it remains clear that it and other opposition parties have not done enough to show they are relevant to ANC members. DA leader Helen Zille’s confident prediction that the next leader of the party would be black – without naming the leading contender from the party’s small pool of black leaders – pointed to the party’s changing posture.

The ANC managed to convince most of its voters that its shortcomings in government proceed from individual failures by certain councillors, mayors or ministers, not by the party. Julius Malema, ANC Youth League (ANCYL) leader, persuaded angry supporters that the notorious ‘toilets-without-walls’ were built by corrupt, incompetent councillors who would be dealt with by the party, which he upheld as essentially good.

Just before the vote, Zuma made two moves that helped his party. He said corrupt or incompetent winners would be fired after the poll, allowing by-elections at which new ANC candidates could stand. Secondly, he promised the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) that he will be ‘sympathetic’ to their wage demands this year.

Campaigning by Cosatu’s General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi around Port Elizabeth is widely believed to have hurt the DA’s prospects in the Eastern Cape. The South African Municipal Workers Union had threatened a national strike two days before the poll, but Cosatu leaders persuaded them to put the strike on hold, and did the same with other public sector unions. At the same time, Vavi is the bravest and most relentless critic of nepotism and corruption among the top ranks of the ANC, and doesn’t spare Zuma’s extended family.

The ANC has lost the votes of the minority communities, which now support the DA overall, and is becoming a predominantly black party. This is likely to strengthen the hands of the ANC’s ‘African nationalists’, notably Malema and Jimmy Manyi, head of the Government Communication and Information Services (GCIS). Manyi deplores the high proportion of minorities in the ANC leadership and senior public service management, particularly in economic portfolios, for instance Ebrahim Patel (Economic Development Minister), Pravin Gordhan (Finance Minister), Rob Davies (Trade and Industry Minister) and Gill Marcus (Governor of the Reserve Bank).

Young people stayed away from the polls in droves, although accurate turnout figures were not available. Just over half of South Africans aged between 15 and 24 are unemployed, making them politically disillusioned and economically frustrated. Unemployment is highest among young black women, at 63%. Of all young black people, 57% are unemployed, as are 47% of coloured youths, 23% of Indian youths and 21% of white youths, according to the latest quarterly Labour Force Survey.

Zuma’s main rivals – Tokyo Sexwale, Human Settlements Minister; Kgalema Motlanthe, the Deputy President; and Mathews Phosa, the ANC treasurer – annoyed his allies with their apparently lukewarm attitude during the campaign. They had hoped that the ANC would do poorly, enabling Zuma’s opponents to cast him as an electoral liability in 2014 (AC Vol 52 No 9). The ANC had increased its vote at every election since 1994, except in 2009 and 2011 under Zuma’s leadership. His camp says he ‘cannot be held personally responsible’ for that.

Julius Malema campaigned vigorously, especially among the poor, unemployed and unskilled. His team claims that they got many reluctant supporters out to vote, and his bid for re-election as ANCYL President next month has been strengthened. He still insists that Zuma must go, however, and is outraged by Zuma’s support for his opponent for the ANCYL leadership, Lebogang Maile.

Zuma strategists say that the President is preparing to move quickly to consolidate his position while the ANC election victory is still fresh. He is mulling over a cabinet reshuffle to show that he has ‘listened’ to ANC supporters’ complaints about indecisiveness, incompetence and corruption, we hear. He plans to ‘release’ the Local Government Minister (now called Co-operative Governance Minister) Sicelo Shiceka, who has been ill. Instead of firing a powerful ally, Zuma will ‘board him medically’, with full benefits. A likely replacement is the Arts and Culture Minister, Paul Mashatile, from the Motlanthe faction, who is angry that Zuma demoted him from Premier of Gauteng, the financial heartland, to a cultural backwater. Mashatile wants Zuma to serve only one term. His appointment could neutralise a detractor and bring new energy to the local government job.

League leaders

Zuma may also switch the Foreign and Defence portfolios to bring Lindiwe Sisulu closer, free her from battles with the military and beef up his much criticised foreign policy. Otherwise, Defence may be offered to Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula. Mbalula, the former ANCYL leader now pushed by the league for the post of ANC general secretary, is also against a second term for Zuma. At Defence, he might be laid low by the battles that have entangled Sisulu, leaving him little energy for an anti-Zuma campaign.

Public Services and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi may be redeployed, as may the Intelligence Minister, Siyabonga Cwele, whose wife Sheryl was sentenced to 12 years in gaol for drug trafficking on 6 May. If Trevor Manuel, the National Planning Minister, becames the new head of the International Monetary Fund, Zuma could replace him with parliamentary Speaker Max Sisulu, a scion of the powerful Sisulu family, who missed out on a cabinet post after working hard to get Zuma elected. Another possibility would be to bring Cosatu’s Vavi into cabinet. Now the local elections are over, it appears that the fights between the ANC and its alliance partners, Cosatu and the South African Communist Party (SACP), will resume. The ANC was the only party that had not announced the names of their mayoral candidates before the elections, to much outrage from its supporters and alliance partners, who wanted to have a say. To appease the ANC’s alliance partners over the ANC’s candidates’ selection, Zuma had promised them input in the final selection of mayoral candidates.

Now Cosatu says the ANC wants to ‘impose’ its candidates on the alliance partners, the local branches and the community at large. The party appointed the former Johannesburg Finance Director Parks Tau as the city’s new mayor, in place of the ineffectual Amos Masondo. Mondli Gungubele becomes Mayor of Ekurhuleni, and Kgosientsno Ramokgopa Mayor of Tshwane/Pretoria. All are close allies of Zuma.

Cosatu, the SACP, and the SA National Civics Organisation say they were not consulted. The ANC Women’s League complains that the target of 50% gender parity will not be met and the ANCYL complains not enough young people are represented. To probe possible irregularities in the selection of mayors, the party appointed a seven-member team led by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the Home Affairs Minister and Zuma’s ex-wife. Again, Cosatu and the SACP say they were not consulted.

The ANC’s promises on wage demands may have to be fulfilled soon, we hear. Public sector unions representing 1.3 million civil servants are considering strike action if they do not get an 11% pay increase as a reward for their support. The official offer is a 6.5% rise and an increase in housing allowance from R500 to R620 a month. Mugwena Maluleke, General Secretary of the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union, says that if the government fails to give the public sector unions what they want, it would be ‘shut down’. Cosatu unions in the private sector want double-digit pay increases and the National Union of Metalworkers wants 20%. Zuma promises to start reforming local governance by making his ally Collins Chabane, the Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Minister, monitor and evaluate, and by empowering the National Treasury to reallocate unspent budgets.

The ANC has won a huge victory despite strong fears that voters would punish it for its failures in government. Since they did not, it is unlikely the party will show great reforming zeal to correct past errors. Zuma told a crowd in Johannesburg: ‘We have proved that we are in charge that we have better policies, programmes to change your quality of life.’

Reference: www.africa-confidential.com