Disillusionment among traditional supporters of the government is likely to spell gains for the official opposition party
Howard Barrell and Barry Streek
Voters look set to deliver a shrill wake-up call to the African National Congress in nationwide local government elections on Tuesday.
The latest opinion polling and anecdotal evidence suggests that discord within the ANC at local level together with dissatisfaction over non-delivery on core services like policing, housing and water has frayed support for the ruling party in metropolitan areas across the country.
As campaigning moves into its final few days, the Democratic Alliance appears to be the main beneficiary of disillusionment among traditional ANC supporters in black townships. Independents and left-wing candidates who have broken with the ANC at local level are not managing to capitalise on the dissatisfaction, according to the most recent polling.
If the suggested drop-off in support for the ANC materialises on Tuesday, it will not challenge the party’s stark dominance of the South African political landscape. Its significance will lie elsewhere: in the much-sought-after toehold it could give the DA among black voters, and in the more fertile ground it might create for the emergence of a serious political party challenging the ANC from the left in future years.
A total of 30?477 candidates from 79 political parties and 690 independents are contesting the elections on Tuesday that will choose 8?956 councillors on six metros, 231 local councils and 47 district councils.
Voters will cast their ballots at more than 15?000 polling stations.
About half the councillors will be chosen to represent wards, while the other half will be chosen from party lists according to the proportion of the total vote a party wins in the election for a particular council.
In KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, metro and town councils will be headed by small executive committees, on which parties will be represented proportionally, and titular mayors. In all other provinces, these councils will have executive mayors, who will have considerable powers, and the make-up of mayors’ committees will be discretionary.
The Independent Electoral Commission, which is running the elections, expects that about six out of every 10 voters will cast their ballots on Tuesday.
The elections follow a root-and-branch reorganisation of municipal boundaries and the structure of local government this year. There are fears that the resultant discontinuity could disrupt services in some areas.
A poll by Markinor, the results of which were released this week, suggests that the DA should take Cape Town and, surprisingly, is running neck-and-neck with the ANC for control of Pretoria and the West Rand metro.
The outcomes in these local government areas on election day are, however, likely to depend substantially on the ability of the various party organisations actually to get their voters to the polls.
The Markinor poll also suggests higher levels of support for the DA than detected hitherto in Johannesburg (33% to the ANC’s 44%), East Rand (29% to the ANC’s 40%), Durban (27% to the ANC’s 35% and the Inkatha Freedom Party’s 8%) and Port Elizabeth (27% to the ANC’s 57%).
If these measures of support for the DA are accurate, they would indicate that the party has established small but politically significant pockets of support among black people living in urban areas. Achieving this penetration has been the main thrust of the strategy pursued by the DA and, before it, of its main constituent, the Democratic Party, since last year’s general election.
Markinor said its poll, conducted on a small voter sample, has a margin of error of 3% each way. It warned that the poll indicated “broad trends” rather than providing a basis for predicting the outcome of the elections.
Political observers generally predict a win for the DA in Cape Town, with the ANC taking all the other metro councils and the vast majority of councils in rural areas, apart from outlying areas in KwaZulu-Natal where the IFP is expected to predominate.
But the ANC’s well-timed handout of “sweeties” on the eve of the elections such as the symbolic return of District 6 to its former inhabitants last weekend could induce more voters in the final days of campaigning to support the ruling party in highly contested areas.
Other areas of the country where the DA is engaged in a real struggle for power with the ANC include: (in the Western Cape) Malmesbury, Hermanus-Gansbaai, Piketberg, Langeberg, Bredasdorp, Swellendam and Stellenbosch; (in the Eastern Cape) Steytlerville; (in the Northern Cape) Mier, Victoria West and Williston; (in Gauteng) Midvaal; and (in KwaZulu-Natal) Hilton-Howick-Balgowan.
A shortage of money, weak organisation and serious problems within the United Democratic Movement in recent months, particularly in its heartland of former Transkei, could foreshadow a sharp drop in its support.
If the party does hold on to the support it won in the general election in June last year, this is more likely to be the result of a protest vote against the ANC than effective campaigning by the UDM.
There are, however, signs that the small African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) could pick up support in parts of the Cape and KwaZulu-Natal and may hold the balance of power between the ANC and the DA if there is a hung Cape Town metro council. ANC and DA politicians in Cape Town have been assiduously courting their ACDP counterparts in case of this eventuality.
The Azanian People’s Organisation, the Pan Africanist Congress and the Socialist Party of Azania do not appear to have made any progress over the course of the campaign. If they get any council seats, these are likely to be proportional representation rather than ward seats.