Election SA: The prospects

James Hamill Correspondent
In theory, South Africa’s national and provincial elections being held today should give the opposition its best opportunity to date to erode support for the African National Congress and possibly advance a realignment of South African politics. The ANC has had a difficult period in government since the 2009 election, beset by problems of leadership, internecine strife, countless corruption scandals, confusion over economic policy and daily “service delivery” protests.

The country’s post-1994 nadir came in August 2012 with the killing by police of 34 striking miners, a tipping point for many who had previously been unconditionally loyal to the ANC.

Although this year’s poll coincides with the 20th anniversary of South Africa’s democracy, providing the ANC another opportunity to flaunt its liberation credentials, it may also serve to remind voters how much has been left unachieved, and of the shortfalls in ANC performance on unemployment, inequality and poverty, as well as the plummeting ethical standards in government.

These deficits should provide fertile terrain for the ANC’s opposition on both left and right.
The ANC is also increasingly vulnerable to the charge that it principally serves the interests of a well-connected elite and is unresponsive to its political base.

This is the message of the new Economic Freedom Fighters, a party founded by former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, who sees the ANC as having betrayed the “revolution.”

However, dissatisfaction with the current ANC leadership extends beyond the EFF to the serious left.
This will be the first general election the ANC enters without the backing of a unified labour movement, as the Congress of South African Trade Unions has split over the question of its relations with the party.

COSATU’s largest affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), has said it will not endorse the ANC, which it considers undemocratic and economically neo-liberal and which in NUMSA’s view has marginalised and broken campaign promises to the labour movement.

South African president Jacob Zuma’s recent warning that he is not prepared to co-govern with COSATU will only give greater impetus to NUMSA’s call for an end to the Tripartite Alliance among organised labour, the ANC and the South African Communist Party, as well as its threat to leave COSATU.

Though this embryonic leftist opposition will not consolidate into a political party in 2014, the growing prospect of a left-wing split from the ANC has the greatest potential to transform South Africa’s ossified politics.

In the short term, the ANC will be denied the finance, organisational backbone and potentially the votes of many trade unionists that had been such an asset in previous polls.

Zuma’s presidency has been criticised and corruption and cronyism have accelerated on his watch, and he is permanently embroiled in personal or political scandal.

That Zuma has survived to lead the ANC into another election can be explained not by any enthusiasm for his stewardship, but by the absence of an alternative the ANC could unite around.

The party also lacks the appetite for the kind of leadership putsch that ousted Thabo Mbeki from the ANC leadership and the presidency in 2007-2008 and the internal bloodletting that would result.

Zuma will seek to exploit the national wave of affection for the departed Nelson Mandela to generate support for the current ANC leadership.
But playing the “Mandela card” carries risks. Voters may indeed rally around the party of Mandela, seeing this as an inappropriate moment to punish it.

Alternatively, Mandela’s passing may highlight the chasm between his stature and the diminished and squalid nature of Zuma’s leadership.
The booing of Zuma at the Mandela memorial before a global audience was an early warning of these dangers.
Nonetheless, despite its many woes, the ANC remains a formidable political machine.

Loyalty to it runs deep in the black South African electorate, and the ANC’s governing record is mixed, rather than unambiguously failing.
Zuma could neutralise his critics by improving the ANC’s share of the vote from the 65.9 percent achieved in 2009, but the party’s majority status will begin to look vulnerable if its vote share dips below 60 percent.

A result in the low to mid-60s would confirm the ANC’s slow but inexorable decline, and would mean Zuma had lowered the ANC vote in two successive general elections, as well as the 2011 municipal elections.

Either outcome could see a campaign to dislodge Zuma ahead of the 2016 municipal polls for fear of further losses.