Robert Mattes: A SECOND LOOK
As reported recently (“The ANC and the seven dwarfs”, December 4 to 10), voter surveys have revealed increasingly large proportions of voters who might be persuaded to vote differently than they did in 1994.
The first Opinion ’99 survey in September 1998 revealed that 56% of all potential voters now say they do not feel closer to any political party. Four-in-10 insist that they do not even “lean” toward any specific party. And one-in-five say they do not know who they would vote for if an election were held tomorrow.
In the business world, research numbers demonstrating this size of available market share would send smaller firms scrambling to close the gap with the industry leader by developing new product lines, new advertising messages, new representatives and finding ways to get new outlets in the right areas – if necessary totally reinventing their images.
What do we get from the government’s political competitors? The New National Party. An invisible United Democratic Movement. And Tony Leon (wearing a “presidential tie”) going on a “Leader of the Opposition Tour” (sort of like MTN saying, “Get the second-best connection”).
With an electorate showing all the signs of ripeness for significant realignment, the country’s opposition parties remain locked in the past, unable to offer voters a credible alternative.
Offering voters a real alternative means much more than simply adopting differing policy stances on “the issues”. Voters know that many things come up in the course of governing that are never discussed in a campaign. They know that governments are often forced to move in directions quite different to their campaign pledges (take the growth, employment and redistribution strategy, for example).
A true alternative comes from a party voters feel they could trust in government to handle the emerging problems of the day.
But Opinion ’99 reveals that while 67% think they could trust the African National Congress to what was right if it ran the government, only 18% say so for the NP, 12% for the Democratic Party, 10% Pan Africanist Congress, and so on.
There are, at least, three important sources of trust in a political party.
First, regardless of how sympathetic or ideologically close voters may feel toward a party, they will only allow it to govern if they think it is competent.
According to Opinion ’99, two-thirds of the electorate feel the ANC would be able to do a good job running the country if elected. In contrast, the next closest parties are the NP (28%), DP (21%), and PAC (17%).
Secondly, voters must be able to believe what a party says. Yet meagre numbers of South African feel they can believe opposition parties: the NP at 18% and DP at 13% lead the pack. In fact, a whopping 67% say they cannot believe what the NP says, and 64% say so about the Inkatha Freedom Party (48% for the PAC and 42% for the DP).
Finally, voters trust political parties that they think represent them, know where they come from, and know what their problems are.
But in contrast to the 71% who say the ANC represents all South Africans, only 32% say so about the NP (down from 39% in 1994), 26% for the PAC and 24% for the DP (also down from 39% in 1994 – which should give Leon reason to reconsider his strategy).
The balance either doesn’t know whom a party represents, or says that it is exclusive and representative of some other group. While exclusivity may be a virtue to Bradlows, it is anathema to most voters.
It is hard to overstate the truly ominous message for the opposition conveyed by these numbers. What they mean is that most opposition parties are “off limits” for most voters even before they begin to campaign and take policy stances. Maybe President Nelson Mandela had a look at these results before he castigated the “Mickey Mouse” parties in opposition.
What would opposition parties have to do to begin to mould themselves into credible alternatives in the eyes of larger shares of voters?
An important starting point is to understand the proper mix between communicating factual information about performance and policy positions, on one hand, and the way in which that information is communicated and the way a party presents itself, on the other.
According to political scientist Samuel Popkin (The Reasoning Voter, 1994), most voters have limited factual information about the past performance, or policy stances of the government, candidates and parties.
They must, therefore, infer a great deal of information about those whom they would entrust to lead them from whatever information is available to them, what Popkin calls “low information reasoning”.
One basic, but important source of information from which voters can derive information is visible demographic characteristics of candidates, like skin colour, accent or personal history. Voters look to these things to infer likely future performance, or to reason out where the candidate stands on the issues that are important to the voter.
This is especially true for new parties, or new candidates in old parties, about which, or whom, voters possess little information, and thus more prone to judge them in terms of images based on racial and ethnic stereotypes
Another source of low information reasoning for voters is the views of trusted opinion leaders in their community for cues, or of more well-known leaders who might publicly endorse or join a given party.
Finally, voters also look to the way in which parties communicate their messages, especially in the way in which they campaign. Are they comfortable campaigning in your location or township? Do they evince comfort with your culture and interest in your problems, or do they look as stiff and phony as a R3 note?
While all these things may seem at first glance to be no more than image- driven, purely symbolic politics, they contain real substantive content and provide voters with crucial information. They are an important way to communicate key information about whether a party cares about a constituency and understands its needs.
And unless opposition parties are willing to undergo fundamental changes in their image and in the way they communicate with voters, they are doomed to repeat their performances of 1994, or worse.
Without fundamental shifts in party strategy, tactics and leadership, and massive amounts of new information, voters will simply fall back on the prevailing stereotypes.
Black voters will simply see another “white leader” or “white party” with all the baggage of the past that that entails, or vice versa for the PAC or UDM.
This requires that parties avoid mere tokenism and bring people from target constituencies into positions of real influence and leadership. Otherwise, they risk a public relations disaster with these people leaving and telling everyone that people from their community are not welcome in your party.
This also requires that parties avoid pure symbolism, which can turn to disaster if candidates try too hard and end up simply looking silly (the picture of FW de Klerk donning a Basotho hat and shawl comes to mind).
In short, it requires South Africa’s opposition parties to take the bold leap in search of the larger electoral pot that surveys now clearly demonstrate exists.
Of course, all this discussion presumes that opposition parties, in fact, really want to govern this country and are not content simply to hold on to their own limited support bases (and thus parliamentary seats and perquisites).
Here, then, is the nub of the problem. Are they willing to take the risks?
A bold, imaginative opposition that could use the upcoming campaign to focus the nation’s attention on issues like crime, jobs and the economy, and try to persuade voters that the government is responsible for the country’s woes, and that they offer a better alternative, might make life very uncomfortable for ANC strategists during the next six months. As things are, however, ANC campaign managers can probably set their alarms to “snooze”.
Dr Robert Mattes is manager of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative in South Africa’s Public Opinion Service. He writes this column in his personal capacity and the opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Idasa or the Opinion ’99 consortium