How the ANC could lose Gauteng this year
With South Africa nearing local government elections – due to be held between May and August – the African National Congress (ANC) is under no illusion that it faces its most difficult challenge yet to hold on to power.
The race to win Gauteng is arguably the biggest prize given the province’s economic importance, accounting for about 35% of the country’s entire GDP.
And it is Gauteng that is of particular concern for the ruling party, which has seen its premier David Makhura look to strengthen ‘Team Gauteng’ by recruiting Gauteng ANC chairman and MP, Paul Mashatile, last month.
The DA, meanwhile, has appointed business tycoon Herman Mashaba as the party’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg.
Read: DA and EFF in ‘secret’ coalition talks: report
The ANC admitted in an internal discussion document in 2015 that it had concerns about its waning support which dwindled from over one million members to just above 789,000 over the last couple of years.
From the last two national elections, the ANC has shed support, coming down from 69.7% in 2004, to 65.9% in 2009 and 62.2% in 2014, it said.
In the municipal elections in 2011, the ANC won 61.4% of the vote in Gauteng, with the DA winning 32.6%.
In the 2014 national elections in Gauteng, the ANC won 54.9%, with the DA winning 28.5%, while newcomers, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) won 10.3%.
Provincially, the ANC won 56.3%, the DA was at 30.8%, while the EFF was at 10.3%.
According to the Institute for Security Studies, when taking into account the increase in the population of voters in 2014, the ANC votes were down more than 20% in Joburg.
Last week, DA Mmusi Maimane told Bloomberg that the party is ready to form coalitions with other parties to run Johannesburg and Pretoria if the ANC fails to win a majority in those cities.
“I don’t always think that people who vote for the DA are blue-blooded people,” Maimane said, referring to the party’s branding colour. “I think they will be people who say ‘I despise the ANC, so anything other than the ANC is a good option for me.”
He cautioned however, that president Zuma still wields great power. “The thing that strikes me the most is how powerful Zuma is,” Maimane said. “His removal isn’t going to be an instant thing, if it’s going to happen.”
Maimane said that the EFF are a threat – “they do fish in some ways in the same pond, which is the pond that says any voter who is disillusioned with the ANC then has a new choice.”
Maimane said that the DA would be willing to join a coalition with the party in municipalities where the ANC doesn’t secure a majority because local authorities have few powers of expropriation.
The DA would only enter into an alliance if it’s the biggest party in the coalition, he said.
“We talk about a market-based economy which makes it very difficult to negotiate with the EFF, but in a local-government terrain you can’t nationalize too much and then we talk about, at least, respect for the rule of law,” Maimane said.
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