South Africans are not overwhelmingly preoccupied with affirming their racial identities in their voting behaviour, University of Cape Town researcher Collette Schulz-Herzenberg has found. The findings are contained in Shulz-Herzenberg’s study, A Silent Revolution: South African Voters During the First Years of Democracy, 1994 -2006, for UCT’s Centre for Social Science Research.
“People are using race as a rational information cue to inform them about where their self-interests lie,” says Schulz-Herzenberg. “There is a subtle but fundamental difference. It is not that people are voting for a black party because they are black.” Her analysis of 12 years of election data found that African voters are more consistently likely to identify with a party than minority race groups.
But on average only 65% of black voters were close to a particular party, while in some years 49% declared themselves independents.
To date this has not expressed itself in increased support for opposition parties, but the growing number of black independent voters could benefit the new Congress of the People.
“Levels of ANC partisanship among black South Africans have fluctuated between 62% and 42%, decreasing steadily since 1994, but have not been counterbalanced by shifts to opposition parties,” she says.
“Instead there is a significant increase in independents among this race group, suggesting that ANC support is smaller than initially supposed and many voters support this party not because they are loyal partisans but because they do not regard opposition parties as feasible alternatives.”
White partisanship has fluctuated between 16% and 41%, decreasing dramatically since 1994. Support for the governing party among whites remains negligible, while there were more independents than partisans among voters who identify themselves as coloured and Indian.
“Support for opposition parties has declined steadily over time, possibly due to the demise of the New National Party, offset somewhat by the growth in support for the DA among this racial group, while support for the ANC has also increased.” Schulz-Herzenberg concludes that the growing number of non-partisans holds the key to future electoral alignments.
In his latest survey, Testing Times for Democracy in South Africa, professor Lawrence Schlemmer finds that South Africa is “saturated” with race but that up to 20% of black voters are not so intensely motivated by racial interests that they cannot consider alternatives to the ANC.
“Blacks and whites want to escape race but are trapped by the structures as well as government’s implementation of policies. Whether they like it or not most black voters are trapped in racially structured definitions of their situation as far as party politics are concerned,” says Schlemmer.
Schulz-Herzenberg’s research also indicates changes in voting patterns by economic class, notably among employers and the unemployed.
Workers’ support for opposition parties is low and declining — from 28% in 1994 to 10% in 2004. While workers make up the most steadfast partisans of the ANC, they do not represent more than half the electorate in any year.
“In 2004 the working class had the highest level of partisanship, replacing the unemployed, who began to show signs of [declining partisanship] by 2004. Subtle changes may present the beginning of a new emerging pattern among classes, where the unemployed begin to withdraw support from parties in general while the wealthier middle classes increase their partisanship.”
ANC partisanship among the owner/employer class dropped dramatically after 1994, while the proportion of independents in this category increased steadily.
But this trend was reversed after 2002. By 1999 the number of ANC partisans in the owner/employer category had begun to rise steadily, overtaking opposition partisans by 2002. This reflects the emergence of a new black middle class. Whereas opposition partisans made up 70% of the professional/supervisory category in 1994, by 2004 34% were ANC supporters and only 19% opposition supporters.