Lahja Nashuuta
Paheja Siririka
The African National Congress’ 30-year grip on South African politics has ended, and the party is seeking coalition partners.
The ANC, which came to power in 1994 after the defeat of the repugnant and brutal apartheid regime, lost its parliamentary majority for the first time, results from the general election showed yesterday.
With 100% of the votes from Wednesday’s election counted, the party, once led by liberation icon Nelson Mandela, found itself eating humble pie. They secured just over 40%, a far cry from the 57.5% it won five years ago.
The party also lost its majority in two of the nine provinces, while the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) retained control of a third.
Namibia reacts
At home, political commentators followed the fiercely-contested vote with keen interest.
They stated that the ANC’s fall from grace is a rude awakening to other former liberation movements on the continent that voters will no longer swallow their ‘rule until Jesus come’ rhetoric hook, line and sinker.
Institute for Public Policy Research executive director Graham Hopwood attributed this poor performance to high unemployment and poverty levels, which remain widespread in South Africa due to a sluggish economy, corruption, ineffective service delivery, power outages and water shortages.
He strongly believes these factors, “combined with generational change, which means young people do not consider the liberation struggle when voting, mean that a large section of the South African electorate has become alienated from the ANC”.
Lesson
Hopwood hastened to say ANC’s sister liberation movement, Swapo, should take a cue from the result, and have a clear roadmap for addressing the socio-economic issues facing the country.
“Swapo should examine carefully why the ANC has lost support if it wants to avoid the same fate. Namibian opposition parties are likely to see the result as a confidence-booster,” he noted.
Political analyst Ndumba Kamwanyah said the current crop of voters mostly base their political loyalty on service delivery, rather than glorious pasts.
“South African voters are angered due to joblessness, inequality and a lack of service delivery, and those are mainly youth,” he said.
Kamwanyah is also of the view that the ANC’s shift from establishment values and ideologies has contributed to its downfall.
Sharing similar sentiments was Wade Henckert, a political analyst who pointed out that persistent concerns about corruption have eroded public confidence in the ANC-led government.
“Many voters are disillusioned with South Africa’s economic standstill, which is marked by high unemployment, poverty and rising inequality. The ANC has struggled to deliver on economic changes, creating a picture of ineptitude,” he said.
Added Henckert: “Frequent power outages, poor public services and insufficient infrastructure have eroded support for the ruling party. Many residents believe the government has failed to improve their living conditions.”
On his part, commentator and journalist Frederico Links said “a big lesson for regional electorates is that even ruling parties that appear to be solidly entrenched can be dislodged through the ballot. I think for many voters across the region, ruling party dominance appears insurmountable and inevitable. The ANC’s decline should be a clear signal that other ruling parties can also be cut down to size, if not totally removed from power.”
Links continued: “The time has come for ruling parties, including Swapo, to stop trading on their liberation struggle credentials. Voters want to see improvements in their lives and living conditions, and ruling parties need to respond to these demands. Otherwise, they too will be swept from power.”
Politics 101
While the results confirmed the end of the ANC’s unchallenged grip on political power, they detonated the genesis of the race to strike a deal with one or more opposition parties.
Political parties will then have two weeks to work out a deal before a new parliament sits to choose a president, who would likely still emerge from the ANC as the biggest party.
While the ANC appears to be the biggest loser in the just-concluded election, the biggest winners are the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party.
With 15% of the vote, MK’s performance signalled the proverbial resurrection of former ANC and South African president Jacob Zuma, whose political career had been all but sealed and buried in the dustbins not so long ago.
Hopwood said messy coalition negotiations in South Africa may persuade voters in Namibia that a stable, dominant ruling party is preferable to a “mixed bag of opposition parties gaining enough support to engage in coalition politics, which can lead to political paralysis and confusion.”
As South Africa and the ANC find themselves at a crossroads, the ANC must decide whether to form a coalition with the broadly conservative DA, or the more radical options of MK and/or the Julius Malema-led red berets, the Economic Freedom Fighters.
“The decisions to be made in the coming days will decide the fundamental policy direction of South Africa — either a bolstering of the mostly pro-capitalist, centrist approach adopted so far, or a switch to more aggressive left-wing policies that could lead to economic chaos,” Hopwood continued.
On the other hand, Kamwayah believes a coalition is a good thing for democracy but slippery if not handled well, as some “politicians might manipulate the process to suit their own interests”.
“Coalition is good for the government, but can also be problematic because this is an arrangement by political parties, and not based on the legal framework. I hope the coalition will be in the interest and need of the South Africans and not individual politicians,” he said.
Henckert, on the other hand, argued that coalitions can lead to policy deadlock since parties with opposing viewpoints may struggle to achieve an agreement.
This can undermine good governance.
Asked about his observations from the voting and post-voting processes, Henckert said although the election process went quite smoothly, the post-voting phase has been characterised by tension.
“The announcement of recounts in some places indicates probable anomalies, raising worries about the integrity of the voting process. While recounts are common in closely-contested elections, the number of challenges suggests widespread unhappiness and distrust,” he said.
Henckert observed that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)’s timely reaction to recount petitions indicates its commitment to openness. However, it also emphasises the difficulties of retaining public trust in the voting system.
Mzansi
With 100% of the results captured for the 2024 elections, the IEC of South Africa said it will first consider objections before them.
As such, there are opportunities for editing to take place so that errors are rectified, deputy IEC chairperson Masotho Moepya said over the weekend.
“The commission has received 579 objections. This number may increase a little because there may be others that we have to work on. Some themes include where results’ processes were still not completed when the objections were filed with us,” he said, adding that transparency is such a founding value in elections.
The new political kid on the block, the MK, has expressed disapproval of the election results.
Among other reasons, they find it ironic that an institution of the IEC’s stature, while having a service provider like Telkom, found itself in a system shutdown for two hours.
“That’s what we want the IEC to tell us: what transpired in those two hours? There are a lot of issues as to how the IEC has managed this process that have raised serious flags for us. At this point, there is no confidence in what is happening on that screen; we are requesting a recount,” said party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndlela.
Meanwhile, Build One SA (BoSA) leader Mmusi Maimane told the media that looking at the board across the country, they have votes everywhere, and the step to be taken is to enhance that support, adding that his party is not lodging any objections.
“Let the IEC deal with that; we have to get on with the work, post-elections. We, as Build One South Africa, are not contesting these particular elections. We are taking the journey forward, and moving from there,” he stated.
“We have parliamentary representation, and we have put a foothold in Gauteng. My focus right now is to build BoSA. Our demands are straightforward: let us fix Eskom, and let us make sure South Africans have jobs. We can’t do politics; we must think for the 60 million South Africans,” he said.
Maimane’s call is to get all the leaders of the political parties in parliament to have mature conversations rather than political engagement.
“Free and fair is not perfect. It has a threshold that needs to be met, and I, by and large, have accepted that result, and we have dealt with that. If parties want to raise objectives, that’s their issue. But what we don’t need is to keep a country in a space where we are in continuous litigation about election results, rather than formulating a government,” he added.
However, Malema welcomed the results of the elections, noting the discrepancies and unprofessional conduct, dysfunctional occurrences, and inconsistent results captured from different parts of the country.
Malema said: “The 2024 elections were not easy for the EFF, which was fighting not only against the ruling party, but against many puppets of the white racial, capitalist establishment existing as political parties and on different media platforms.”
He noted that the impact of the youth was felt in these elections, and that the party is not desperate for positions.
-lnashuuta@gmail.com