Projections for 2016 local government elections

Before the promises are made, campaigning starts and voter–behaviour surveys begin the only way to predict elections outcomes hold is to examine the past behaviour of voters. The projection of past patterns gives insight into what South Africans can expect when the local government election takes place in the third quarter of 2016. While projections offers an indication as what to expect from the election it should be borne in mind that the objective of election campaigns is largely to alter the expected outcome.

A clear signal of voter intentions for 2016 was already given by the 2014 National/ Provincial election. By extrapolating the changes in voting patterns between the last local government election (2011) and 2014 we can predict that some changes are in the offing for 2016. In particular the ANC can expect declines of about four percent support in Gauteng, the North West province and the Eastern Cape. These declines will be partly offset by a similar percentage gain in ANC vote share in kwaZulu-Natal. The largest movements in votes will be evident in the cities.

In general the ANC can expect to receive a significantly reduced proportion of the votes cast in metropolitan areas and several other cities. As far back as the 2014 National/ Provincial elections the ANC received less than half the proportional representation (PR) votes cast in Nelson Mandela Bay. As that was not a municipal election it did not make any difference to the composition of the metropolitan council then. The changes in support profile are likely to impact on the composition of the municipal council now.

The forecasts indicate that the ANC, while retaining its minority vote share in Cape Town, will lose the absolute majority it currently holds in:

• Nelson Mandela Bay,
• Tshwane and
• Johannesburg.

In these three metropoles the ANC will continue to be the single largest political party but will need the support of opposition councillors to set budgets, pass motions, and enact by-laws. After the election the ANC will hold an absolute majority in only four of the eight metropoles.

The ANC is also likely to lose its absolute majority in other municipalities which are highly urbanised. These include:

• Randfontein,
• Kouga,
• Thabazimbi and
• Rustenburg.

In Rustenburg the ANC majority, which stood at over three-quarters of votes cast before 2011, has since been whittled away by the opposition – in particular by the EFF.

However the election also portends important gains for the ANC particularly in kwaZulu-Natal. Overall the ANC is set to gain absolute majorities in another 28 municipalities. In almost all of the 28 municipalities the ANC is currently the largest political party, albeit one with less than 50% of popular support. After 2016 election the ANC may well no longer need the support of the opposition to pass budgets and by-laws. While most of the 28 municipalities are in kwaZulu-Natal a handful are in the Western and Northern Cape.

In six of the 28 municipalities the ANC stands to win the municipality from another political party. These include winning (from the IFP):

• Nkandla and
• Mthonjeni.

Further south the ANC seems to win several municipalities currently dominated by the DA. These are:

• Bitou,
• Laingsburg,
• Hessequa and
• Witzenberg.

Exactly how the changing vote patterns impact on the composition of elected councils depends on both how the PR votes are apportioned between wards and the second leg of the election (the election of ward councillors directly). It seems that while a marginal change in the political alignment of larger cities is indicated these changes may have a deep impact on the quality of their governance. Until then each of the political parties will strive to ensure that the outcomes are better than what is expected now.

Detailed results are available at: Projections of ANC support in 2016 municipal elections.

South African democracy: the beginning of the end?

An instinctive response to  the killing of 34 strikers by the police on August 16 is that the event may herald  the end of state tolerance of dissent. Along with the 34 the assumption that state violence will not be lightly used to suppress opposition died.  Although much public debate on the reasons for the incident followed  the incident these discourses centered on explanations for the miners militancy or rationales for the polices' violence. The first perspective tended  to "justify"  the  strikers actions in terms of their personal circumstances or on rivalry between competing trade unions.

The miserable social conditions that allegedly underpins the strikers militancy broadly reflects what happens in areas where the local economy is collapsing. Declining service levels, increasing unemployment, income supplementation through prostitution, illicit brewing, alcohol sales, crime etc. now typify the areas surrounding many platinum mines like Lonmin.  These difficult circumstances contribute to miners militancy and to the ability of a upstart union to organise industrial action under the nose of a trade union that has long dominated the industry. The arguments that focus on the impact of social conditions are undermined by the clear focus the miners had on remuneration and by the fact that the strikers are probably better paid than those who shot them. 

While the social conditions may have contributed to discrediting the established National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) they do not offer insight into why the police played a central role in the rivalry.

Although NUM has long been established as the main union representing underground workers at Lonmin the strikes were organized by a fledgling rival AMCU. Clearly the dominance of the ANC-aligned National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was challenged by the strike and some pundits viewed the  heavy-handed police action as state support for their embattled political ally.

Much public debate focused on the militancy of the miners and the threat they posed to the police and other miners. It is repeatedly pointed out that by the time the strikers stormed off the hillock on which they had gathered ten people (including two police officers) had already been murdered in the conflict. It is from his vantage point that most discussions around the appropriateness of the police response proceeds. This discourse then revolved around assessments of the threat posed by the strikers, the ability of the police to protect themselves and others  etc.

 However a central ingredient is missed in all these debates. By the time the strikers were driven from the hillock by police teargas the order to use lethal force (sharp ammunition)  had already been issued. When the strikers stormed off the hillock towards  the police the SAPS had already  dispensed with crowd control control formations  and non-lethal gear. The police has already demobilised the public-order police units in favour of deploying the elite National Intervention Unit (NIU). The NIU is a unit tasked with dealing with high risk conflict situations. The shields, dogs, batons, perimeter control mechanisms that are central to containing violent situations had been withdrawn in favour of a large, highly trained force armed only with lethal weapons.

Furthermore the police were deployed in a pattern that ensured that the strikers could not but run towards them if they were to escape the teargas lobbed at them. When they stormed off the hillock they strikers could not do anything but run towards the police who, in turn, we're unable to respond with anything other than their automatic weapons primed with sharp rounds.  And fire the police did - until all the strikers were down. The strikers were not given an opportunity to surrender or escape.

In other words points about police preparedness, their level of training, the threat the strikers posed etc. are moot - the die had been cast before the first volleys of teargas were lobbed at the hill.

Authority to use sharps rounds can only be issued by the ranking SAPS officer - in this situation this was the recently appointed commissioner Phiyega. The resultant massacre would, on the face of it, support  calls for police commissioners to be appointed from within police ranks. Perhaps a commissioner more familiar with crowd control and the volatile situations may have prevented the biggest mass ace in South Africa since Sharpeville. By intimation it was the commissioners inexperience that caused the massacre. However this perspective is undermined by the explanations that followed the incident. The day's events were followed by a sanctimonious blathering about the danger the strikers posed to others and how they were belligerent and superstitious they were. The subtext of these explanations was that the strikers got what they deserved. The fact that there were no police casualties on the day of the  massacre suggests that the magnitude of the threat posed by the strikers was probably exaggerated.

However an explanation is still needed as to why the NIU had been deployed and the non-lethal measures withdrawn. Was this, for example, an attempt to neutralise a militant rival to the established union? Such explanations miss a key dimension to the conflict - the close alignment between Lonmin and the upper echelons of the ruling party. For example in its former guise as "Lonrho", Lonmin reputedly bankrolled several of the leading ANC families both while they were in exile and on their return to South Africa in the mid 1990s.  Currently ANC heavyweight Cryril Ramaphosa is a (non-executive) director of Lonmin. It was also Lonmin that stood to benefit most from the ending of the strike. The platinum sector is going through a crisis with falling PGM prices, greatly reduced demand for their product as well as rapidly increasing costs structure. Of particular importance is the cost of electricity used by the mines and associated processors. These factors ensure that not only could the mine not accede to the strikers demands they could not afford to cover running costs while a small component of the total workforce  halted production.  Only about ten percent of the Lonmin workforce joined the strike yet those 3 000 rock-drillers were able to stop production.

Clearly Lonmin stood to benefit most from the collapse of the strike than anybody.  The events of the day represent nothing more sophisticated than the state acting in the interests of big capital and the ruling party. Unless the commission of inquiry is able to provide a more convincing account as to why non-lethal force was withdrawn we really do need to ask whether or not this is the end of the tolerance of dissent required of a functioning democracy.

The ANC is the new IFP

Is the ANC the new IFP?

The National Chamber of Provinces recently concluded public hearing on the Traditional Courts Bill. This bill seeks to give traditional leaders the power to preside over certain civil disputes and criminal offences in the areas under their jurisdiction. The public hearings were an opportunity for those affected by the proposed legislation to voice their concerns about its impact. It was also an opportunity for the provincial legislatures to claim they had consulted affected communities before they endorsed the legislation.

Not surprisingly the bill was met with a great deal of resistance by civil society and community members. It is clear from the public hearings that community members are concerned that traditional leaders, some of whom are corrupt, ineffectual or partisan, are formally being given greater powers. Civil societies' objections centred on the negative impact the bill, if passed, will have on women's rights. The general thrust of criticism is that hereditary leadership in a highly patriarchal and authoritarian social setting undermines the rights of all commoners, particularly women, and is in clear conflict with the constitutions core premise of "equality". Essentially the bill entrenches the right,by birth, of some to judge and govern and the obligation  of all others, by virtue of where they live, to be judged and ruled.

The hearings in kwaZulu-Natal were particularly enlightening. They showed unequivocal support among traditional leaders for the bill. The reason for this consensus is clear as senior traditional leaders are all set to benefit from this and other proposed changes. However the most remarkable part of the hearings  was the absence of the antipathy between the ANC and the IFP that has long marked politics in kaZulu-Natal  - particularly when traditional rights and culture were concerned. There was no sign of dissent between chiefs aligned to different parties or between the chiefs and the sponsors of the bill i.e. Luthuli House.

This consensus highlights the extent to which the political landscape in kwaZulu-Natal has changed.  Those seeking to preserve traditional African culture, hereditary rights or general social conservatism in kwaZulu-Natal can now identify with the ruling party rather than with the IFP whose influence  has been waning since 1994. The ANC has managed to appropriate a rich political terrain once monopolised by the IFP.  Understanding how much the terrain has changed rests on acknowledgment of the extent to which the ANC has moved to the IFP's value system rather than through the political evolution of Zululand residents. It is this change in the ANC that invites the perspective that the ANC is the new IFP. It is the ANC that now promises to preserve hereditary rights, traditional values and promote the associated social conservatism.

The reason for the shift in the ANC is clear. In 2009 the ANC was returned to power with votes just shy of a two thirds majority. When compared to the previous national election (in 2004) voters gave the ANC an additional 1.2 million votes. This increase in votes was widely seen as an endorsement of the ANC under Zuma's leadership. However the addition votes were garnered not, as the political pundits claimed, from the left, the unions or from the youth. The increase in votes were almost entirely from traditional areas in kwaZulu-Natal and other provinces.  As people living in other provinces on "traditional" land had largely thrown their lot in with the ANC already their contribution to the increased ANC vote was less pronounced. 

Traditional leaders are key to the continued support of any political party in what was previously referred to as "tribal areas". The chiefs exert tremendous influence on whether or not people vote and on whom they vote for. For example in the 2009 election the IFP still managed to get 800 000 votes and these votes are now, in a very real sense, there for the taking. Given the changing political landscape there is little reason to suggest that the chiefs will take them to the new National Freedom Party or keep them with the IFP.

Inevitably there is a qui pro quo for this support. The first sign of the quid pro quo was the establishment of a Department of Rural Development and Land Reform within a month of the election. This was followed by the re-invigoration of traditional councils and , belatedly, the holding of traditional council elections. Reviving the Traditional Courts Bill (which had stalled in 2008) followed.  Still to come is the  National Traditional Affairs Bill which may well extend local government powers to traditional leaders.

All this bodes poorly for the IFP as traditional leaders no longer have to look to the IFP to advance their interests and traditional rights in general. The ANC is now happily fulfilling this role - even at the expense of the core values of the constitution and what the ANC's has been describing as its own political heritage. This said, the support that the traditional leaders bring will inevitably be at the cost of some of support it currently enjoys from what the ANC itself terms "progressives". For example, although the Womens League has been silent about the promotion of the Traditional Courts bill their complicity in the promotion of such patriarchal systems can not continue indefinitely. Until then the extent to which  ANC support is derived from traditional leaders is the extent to which Zuma's position will be secure relative to the "progressives".