ANALYSIS: ANC have only themselves to blame

Published Aug 5, 2016

Share

Pretoria - The disbelief in the ANC was palpable as it became clear Nelson Mandela Bay was slipping from its grasp.

There was an abortive attempt to dispute the outcome before, perhaps realising that it would not be in the interests of a party in government in most of the rest of the country to lay waste to the IEC’s reputation, the ANC chose to bite the bullet.

But the writing had been on the wall for some years already and the shock may have stemmed more from the ANC’s sense of impunity than actual surprise.

The fall has been precipitous.

In 2006 the ANC got 66.53 percent of the vote in Nelson Mandela Bay but by the subsequent elections in 2011 it came within a whisker of defeat, scoring 51.91 percent. That’s a plunge of almost 15 percentage points within the space of five years and it has bled a further 10 percentage points this time around.

No party doing even a half-decent job of running a city, and least of all a party with the ANC’s potent liberation heritage, on the home turf of some of its iconic leaders, sheds support at that sort of rate.

Which says everything we need to know, as if we didn’t know it already, about the ANC’s record in Nelson Mandela Bay, culminating in it having to parachute in Danny Jordaan to try to clean up the mess.

A fleet of buses worth R100m which was supposed to modernise the city’s public transport system stands idly gathering dust as just one example of the bungling and corruption that have bedevilled the city.

Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Des van Rooyen confirmed earlier this year that 19 fraud and corruption cases, including the procurement of the buses, were being investigated in the city, involving collusive practices between municipal officials, companies and politicians.

Another warning bell should have been the shock victory of the DA Student Organisation at Fort Hare University in 2015, with complaints about crumbling student residences and abuse of bursary funds fuelling a revolt against the ANC-aligned SA Students Congress (Sasco).

It is clear the voters of Nelson Mandela Bay have had enough, even if it is true to some extent that poor turnout in ANC-supporting areas, combined with very strong turnout in DA supporting areas, may have played a significant part in the loss.

Clearly the DA could not have achieved 46 percent on the strength of white voters only, meaning at least some black voters have turned on the ANC.

The ANC did this to itself, through sheer ineptitude and graft, rather than the opposition DA having set out a more compelling policy stall with majority appeal.

Its campaign leitmotif of “good governance” was in fact entirely dependent for its appeal on the ANC’s failings, to the extent that black residents were willing to overlook the complaints of poor treatment made against DA mayoral candidate Athol Trollip by his workers.

If the Nelson Mandela Bay outcome is really a vote against the ANC, however, what has it been for?

With a DA-EFF combination looking like the most viable coalition – an outcome that may even be replicated in Tshwane and Johannesburg unless the ANC makes a remarkable late surge in those metros – what kind of political programme have the people of Nelson Mandela Bay bought themselves with their votes?

In Cape Town, where it has racked up a ten-year track record in government, the DA has been able to keep its financial house in order, the water running and the roads, except in the townships, intact.

But Cape Town is a very different city to Nelson Mandela Bay.

It has revenue sources – from its tourism and wealthy suburbs, among others – that Nelson Mandela Bay, where mass poverty is the norm, can only dream of.

The “refugees” Western Cape Premier Helen Zille notoriously complained of live in the Eastern Cape.

How will the DA’s 'lift yourself up by your bootstraps, equal opportunity society" vision play out in a city where most people have no boots to start with?

More especially if it finds itself in coalition with a party whose ideological starting point is radical redistribution of just about everything.

This also poses a question for the EFF for which there may be no satisfactory answer: what are the minimum terms on which it would enter a coalition with the DA?

Would that discussion be about deliverables for its voters or positions for its representatives?

The people of Nelson Mandela Bay may have chosen to rid themselves of the devil they know, but there is no knowing yet what shape their next government will take.

Nevertheless, they have announced loudly and clearly that they will no longer be taken for granted.

Elections Bureau

Related Topics: