{"id":764607,"date":"2024-03-28T13:35:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T11:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=764607"},"modified":"2024-03-28T14:16:10","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T12:16:10","slug":"bad-news-for-south-africas-best-case-election-scenario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/764607\/bad-news-for-south-africas-best-case-election-scenario\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad news for South Africa&#8217;s &#8216;best-case&#8217; election scenario"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South Africa\u2019s main opposition party will resist forming a coalition with the ruling African National Congress in order to govern the country should it need to.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be in government with the ANC,\u201d said John Steenhuisen, the Democratic Alliance\u2019s leader. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to solve the country\u2019s problems by having the same people who are responsible for the economic crisis, the social crisis, and the infrastructure crisis sitting around the table.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa is on the cusp of an era of national coalition politics after elections scheduled for May 29. Opinion polls suggest the ANC will lose its overall majority for the first time since it came to power at the end of apartheid 30 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Steenhuisen, 48, has spearheaded the formation of a bloc of 11 opposition parties that aims to form a coalition government after the vote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Members of the Multi Party Charter have ruled out working with the ANC or the populist Economic Freedom Fighters, currently the third-biggest group, and polls show they\u2019ll collectively struggle to obtain even 40% support. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A survey by the Social Research Foundation indicates that a<strong>n ANC-DA tie-up would be the one favored by most South Africans.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"CHpdMz9JCZ\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/762397\/south-african-voters-to-receive-three-ballots-in-the-2024-election-what-you-need-to-know\/\">South African voters to receive three ballots in the 2024 election &#8211; what you need to know<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;South African voters to receive three ballots in the 2024 election &#8211; what you need to know&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/762397\/south-african-voters-to-receive-three-ballots-in-the-2024-election-what-you-need-to-know\/embed\/#?secret=IB07BzPnHd#?secret=CHpdMz9JCZ\" data-secret=\"CHpdMz9JCZ\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The DA, which espouses market-friendly policies, currently controls the Western Cape \u2014 the only province not run by the ANC \u2014 and won 21% of the vote in the last national election in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It has also wrested control of several major towns in municipal elections by forming alliances with other parties, but some of those coalitions have proved unstable, with power changing hands several times and some services griding to a halt.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Steenhuisen called new \u201cpopcorn\u201d parties that split the opposition vote \u201cthe biggest threat\u201d to reducing the ANC\u2019s majority.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m saying in this election, vote for the DA \u2014 first prize. But if you\u2019re not going to vote for the DA, vote for the Multi Party Charter parties.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The DA head said former President Jacob Zuma\u2019s uMkhonto weSizwe Party differs from other new ones because it had a leader with significant name recognition and that it has already made inroads in by-elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re devouring the ANC and what does that do?,\u201d Steenhuisen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt helps lower the ANC\u2019s majority and give the Multi-Party Charter an even better chance of being able to get into government in places like KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, and nationally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A survey released by the SRF this month shows support for the DA is slipping in the Western Cape, and that it may be forced into a coalition in the province, though it\u2019s likely to remain by far the biggest party in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The DA faced internal turmoil when Mmusi Maimane, its first Black leader, exited in 2019 and a number of its other senior Black members followed suit, with some of them taking issue with the DA\u2019s policy on race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the municipalities it controls are regarded as being among the country\u2019s better-run, its top leadership is predominantly White and it has struggled to increase support among the Black majority.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Asked whether South Africans would be hesitant to vote for a party in which a majority of parliamentarians are White, Steenhuisen said citizens want politicians who can address service-provision problems and lift the poor out of poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPeople in this election are not looking for the color of the cat \u2014 they\u2019re looking at who\u2019s going to catch the mouse,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t need to be a poor Black South African to get up every morning as I do and fight for a better life for those people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the policy proposals outlined in the DA\u2019s manifesto are the scrapping of race-based economic redress \u2014 a cornerstone of ANC policy \u2014 and converting a temporary monthly stipend that was introduced to cushion the unemployed against the impact of the coronavirus pandemic into a permanent job seekers grant at an additional cost of 39.6 billion rand ($1.95 billion).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It also favours breaking the monopoly of state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., whose failure to adequately maintain its plants and invest in new generation capacity has led to years of rolling blackouts. The DA would instead increase investment in electricity transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/764263\/expect-water-woes-for-the-next-5-years-says-government\/\">Expect water woes for the next 5 years, says government<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Steenhuisen has downplayed a potential ANC-DA coalition &#8211; even if it is favoured by most South Africans. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":764623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-764607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764607"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":764655,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764607\/revisions\/764655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}