Ahead of election, ANC looks to the lights

AIf Eskom comes right in the next few months, it could have a profound effect on traditional ANC voter sentiment

s Eskom’s performance improves, President Cyril Ramaphosa and his cabinet must be heaving a collective sigh of relief. Can load-shedding become so rare that, by the time the country goes to the polls next year — somewhere between mid May and mid August — people will have forgotten all about it?

If they haven’t, or if load-shedding rises in intensity again, the ANC is in increasingly big trouble. Two new surveys, one just out and another soon to be made public, have the ruling party’s vote tumbling again, after surveys earlier in the year suggested it was holding above 50%.

A Brenthurst Foundation poll this week suggests that if the election were held now, the ANC, which won 57.5% of the vote in 2019, would get only 41%. The DA would rise modestly to 23% (20.7% in 2019) and the EFF would go to a mighty 17%, from 10.8% in 2019.

The survey, conducted by the well-regarded UK-based SABI Strategy Group between September 11 and October 3, also polled support for the multiparty charter that includes the DA, ActionSA the IFP and the Freedom Front Plus, giving it a combined 36% of the vote.

That would leave it still uncomfortably adrift from the ANC, which could then easily get over the line through an arrangement with a surging EFF next year. But leaders on both sides of that equation would have deep reservations about a formal tie-up, as would global financial markets.

The survey, however, doesn’t include Songezo Zibi’s new Rise Mzansi party. It has been operating below the radar so far but reckons it could get north of a million votes, about 7%. If that were to happen it could hold the balance of power in parliament.

Much of the final result will depend on turnout. Election watchers say the department of home affairs has missed several legal deadlines that could make it difficult to proclaim an election date any time soon. This also makes it possible that the election date could stretch into August, when it is cold and hard to get voters out.

A poll to be formally released soon by the Social Research Foundation has the ANC winning 45% of the vote on a 66% turnout if an election were held today. The 2019 turnout was 66.05%. It gives the DA 31%, the EFF 9% and the IFP 6%. In similar polls in July last year and in March this year it gave the ANC 50% and 52%.

The polls show there is still a lot to play for. If Eskom comes right in the next few months, it could have a profound effect on traditional ANC voter sentiment. At the same time the surveys also show fundamental shifts. The multiparty charter, for instance, and the ANC are neck and neck in Gauteng, says the Brenthurst poll, on 37% each, with the DA itself on 24%. But the EFF gets a critical 18%.

The problem the opposition faces is in settling, before the campaign starts, on a presidential candidate they could all commit to supporting. It is widely agreed this would have to be an African and the pickings are slim inside the charter parties even though the African Christian Democratic Party has now agreed to join.

Mmusi Maimane’s Build One South Africa will also have to hook up at some stage, though I suspect Rise Mzansi will keep its distance until after an election.

In the absence of a candidate to coalesce around — who would then become the face of a US-style presidential campaign — some business leaders and political funders who don’t rate Maimane, IFP leader Velenkosini Hlabisa or Zibi, are huddling about the possibility of parachuting one of their own into the election. This person would be guaranteed the support of the charter parties and possibly Rise Mzansi, and in that event business would put a hideous amount of money into the campaign. Business wants its specific interests in safe hands.

I cannot think of a worse idea. The name most commonly mentioned as the candidate is former Primedia and Aveng CEO Roger Jardine. He has just announced his departure as chair of FirstRand, presumably in advance of a step into politics I doubt voters will be impressed, though Jardine is obviously very smart.

He should ask himself what ANC voters might make of a coloured guy suddenly stepping out of a lofty boardroom into the limelight as their putative leader. Nothing in his life will have prepared him for South African politics in 2023 and the money backing him should go directly to the parties trying to roll the ANC over.

More than 9-million registered voters didn’t vote in 2019. Get them all out on election day; pay for that, and the ANC is gone for good.