The ANC looks set to annihilate the IFP in its traditional stronghold of KwaZulu-Natal. In a province that has never had an outright winner, the ANC was on Friday ahead with 64,83%, followed by 22,37% for the IFP and 8,52% for the DA.
With nearly 66% of a potential 4,4-million votes tallied, it was clear that the ANC had made decisive inroads into rural areas long viewed as strongholds of the IFP.
In 2004 the ANC won 47,2% of the province’s votes, the IFP 35,8% and the DA 9,2%.
‘We knew that if we wanted to grow our support we had to look north,†said Senzo Mchunu, ANC provincial secretary. ‘We consolidated our traditional support bases but we realised that if we were serious about winning KwaZulu-Natal with an outright majority we had to look to the north of the province all the way up to the Mozambique border.â€
This was achieved, according to political analyst Protas Madlala, by allying a razzmatazz election campaign with a history of service delivery dating back to the province’s first coalition government, when ANC ministers such as S’bu Ndebele (transport) and Zweli Mkhize (health) were delivering roads and clinics to the previously marginalised.
Results from Jozini, an IFP bastion bordering Swaziland, bear testimony to the success of this strategy. In the 2004 general election the IFP dominated the area with 73% of the national vote and 74% of the provincial vote compared with the ANC’s 21% haul for provincial and national ballots.
Five years later the ANC has more than doubled its tally in Jozini with 49% of the national vote and 48% of the provincial vote. The IFP slid to 48% national and 49,6% of the provincial vote. A week ago the ANC held a rally in the area, featuring party president Jacob Zuma, which attracted more than 20Â 000 people.
Madlala said the Zuma factor was decisive in breaking the IFP’s electoral hegemony in rural areas: ‘As a Zulu traditionalist from a poor uneducated background, people empathise with him and don’t feel alienated by the perception of a Xhosa Nostra. They feel he knows about their suffering and struggles and can do something to address this.â€
Perhaps as important as the Zuma effect on regular voters was the effect his campaign to become ANC president had on the organisational structures of the ANC in the province. The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal went to the party’s national elective conference in Polokwane in 2007 as a unified pro-Zuma bloc.
Mchunu agreed that the seeds of mobilisation and ‘ensuring the party existed on the ground†were planted then. He said the lessons and experience gained in getting Zuma to the presidency were the ‘most important†factors in the ANC’s success in KwaZulu-Natal.
Other decisive factors included ‘starting the election campaign as early as August, well before the ANC nationally, consolidating traditional ANC areas and sheer hard workâ€, Mchunu said.
Allied to that was the razzmatazz, which included luxury car cavalcades, township bashes to attract the youth vote and even a fashion shift away from a focus on struggle icons to sexy sleeveless shirts.
Mchunu said the ‘flair†extended to hiring a helicopter to transport Zuma: ‘We thought of getting JZ to come to rallies in a helicopter because it was very different and we thought even the people who didn’t like him would have to look up to the skies.â€
If the ANC wins an outright majority in the province, there will be no need for any coalition. The party’s previous partner, Amichand Rajbansi’s Minority Front, was struggling at 0,74% on Friday and the almost invisible Cope was at 1,3%.