The ANC has activated its election strategy, which revolves around introducing Jacob Zuma early on to the electorate, reminding voters of the ANC’s achievements over the years and promising to accelerate progress on health and education.
While Mosiuoa Lekota’s Cope movement has yet to launch and the DA is relaunching this weekend, Zuma has hit the ground running.
He has visited six provinces, where he has been drawing huge crowds. At these he has sought to make the point that the ANC still enjoys overwhelming support despite the breakaway and projections that the ruling party could shed support for the first time since the 1994 elections.
While raising his profile Zuma is also tackling questions about his fitness for the top office, emphasising that he was acquitted of rape and at present faces no charges.
This week he made it clear that there is no chance of him stepping down in favour of his party deputy, President Kgalema Motlanthe.
The ANC is also spreading its manifesto process beyond the party by inviting the public to participate and send submissions to a campaign it calls ”My Future, My Vision”.
Zuma said the public submissions will be collated and considered for the manifesto, which will be launched on January 8. The party is also pushing ahead quietly with its list process, which selects its public representatives for the National Assembly and provincial legislatures.
Many MPs associated with former president Thabo Mbeki are anxiously watching to see if they are excluded from the lists, as widely expected. Some of them are expected to defect to Cope when Parliament closes business early next year.
The ANC’s national list conference will be concluded on December 14, when Cope’s first national conference starts in Bloemfontein.
Officially, the ANC says it is not worried about Cope. ”We are not doing anything about Shikota. We’re not even thinking about them,” Zuma told editors this week in Johannesburg.
But the party is working hard in provinces where it is under threat, such as the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and North West.
It has sent officials to meet branches in insecure areas to ensure that any defections happen only at leadership level.
Other officials say Cope has helped rid the ANC of complacency.
”Shikota has awakened a sleeping snake. Immediately after the convention comrades came out and phoned, asking how they could assist,” said a provincial election task team member.
The official said he believed that the middle classes, who have been alienated by hotheads such as ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, might opt out. But the ANC was confident that it would hold or even extend its support in townships, informal settlements and rural areas.
”This Shikota will not affect our base. It will take away those people who traditionally don’t vote or are unreliable voters because of their mobility.
”We might lose a few women and intellectuals, but our core constituency is one that loves Zuma and can identify with him as one of its own.”
But the official added that the ANC had to take care that it did not ”end up with a Zimbabwean-style voting pattern, where we survive through rural voters and we lose urban voters to the opposition”.