The battered Western Cape ANC has a fresh challenge or opportunity: Cosatu’s high-profile provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich plans to quit the union federation, possibly to contest the forthcoming election with a new party.
The move comes as internal polls conducted for the ANC suggest growing hostility to the party among local voters. Two well-placed independent sources said that a survey commissioned from an independent agency found that 59% of Western Cape voters are actively hostile to the ANC.
Against this backdrop Ehrenreich reckons the trade unions and the ”pissed-off-with-the-ANC” vote will be worth 15% to 20% at election time. This might be enough to keep a broadly ANC-aligned coalition in power if it goes to his proposed party rather than to the Congress of the People (Cope), the DA or the Independent Democrats.
This week Ehrenreich handed a Cosatu discussion document to the ANC raising a number of options the union is considering. Titled ”Proposed Cosatu election programme”, and marked ”not for circulation outside the alliance”, it suggests that if Ehrenreich stands he could win enough votes to act as kingmaker in the province.
Alluding to the survey, the document suggests that the ANC, which has never won an outright majority in the Western Cape, is in for a beating.
”The polls have shown a disturbing trend in the feelings of focus groups to the ANC in the upcoming election: there appears to be at least 50% of voters in the Western Cape who are hostile to the ANC and so won’t vote for it,” the discussion document reads.
Among those surveyed only 18% said the ANC would get their vote, although 30% would plump for the DA and 8% for Cope. Twenty-four percent said they would choose the ID or smaller parties. The remaining 20% was evenly split between undecided voters and those who said they would not vote at all.
”This means that we have already lost the election because it’s a hard sell to convince hostile voters to change their minds in three months,” Ehrenreich wrote.
Commenting on the report, Ehrenreich confirmed that he will ”listen to the calls from a large percentage of voters who are loyal to the ANC but do not want to vote for it”.
Ehrenreich plans to step down from his union position in June. ”I believe it’s time to shake things up and change the way we conduct politics. Polokwane promised change but we’re running the risk of just having a new crowd who wants to put their snouts in the trough,” he said.
”There is a substantial amount of people who support the values of the ANC but they don’t like the leaders or their actions. They don’t support Cope because too many of its leaders are contaminated by their previous political actions and don’t have credibility.”
Ehrenreich wrote that the ANC should have a coalition partner that shares ”the kind of progressive agenda that advances the interest of the poor in the Western Cape. ”This party should appeal to workers who are not inclined to the ANC but are solid supporters of Cosatu. It should also provide an alternative for those people who, for the moment, feel hostile to the ANC because of the developments in the Western Cape and so may feel Cope is their only option, as they would not vote for the DA.”
Ehrenreich said that this concept is similar to the ”Working Families Party”, a New York city party formed by a coalition of community organisations, neighbourhood activists and labour unions, which aims to hold politicians to account on decent jobs, fair taxes, good schools, reliable public transport, affordable housing and universal healthcare.