Hello and welcome to the So What podcast in which political economic analyst JP Landman
discusses the issues uppermost in the minds of South Africans. You can find a written
version of this content on JP's website jplandman.co.za. I am Ruda Landman and I am your host.
This episode goes with JP's newsletter dated the 26th of February 2024 and it is about
the 2024 elections. The date has been announced for the 29th of May and off we go as you say
in your newsletter off to the races. JP we seem to have dozens of political parties and
they are a lot more as we go along. How many are actually presented in parliament at the
moment represented and what is their support base like?
Yeah it is a very interesting point. We have 14 political parties currently in parliament,
the parliament that was elected five years ago in 2019 but really three of them the ANC,
the DA and the EFF between them have got 89% of the vote or 89% of the parliament. The
other 11 parties share the remaining 11%. So it is really a case of three big dogs and
a lot of small dogs.
And since those elections we have had local elections. Did things shift?
Yes they did shift two and a half years later in 2021 and in those elections the ANC suffered
quite a huge loss. They went from 57% of the vote which they got in 29 down to about 40-45%
in 2021. Now the interesting thing is that drop in vote did not go to the other two big
parties the DA and EFF. It went to a host of smaller parties. So the current lie of
the land is that yes we have got three big parties. They have way more than 80% of the
vote between them. We have got a host of smaller parties but it looks as if the smaller parties
are gaining at the expense of the ANC and probably also at the expense of the other
bigger parties.
And since then, so that was 2021, so it is three years, is the information from polls
or something that we can gauge the support from?
Yes, look you are quite right one cannot compare local government election results with national
government election results but that is the best we have got and we use that to determine
the lie of the land. What we have in addition to those election results we now have a number
of polls that have been conducted over the last 24 months. There are in total about 11
of them and so what I have done is to average the results of those polls for the different
political parties and then you get a certain reading and then what I have done also is
to take away the highest and the lowest poll for each political party and average the balance
and then you get a slightly different reading but by and large the same and that reading
is 45% for the ANC, 23% for the DA, 13% for the EFF, about 5% for the IFP and about 4.6%,
4.5% for Action SA. So you can see essentially the ANC is not making up what they look like
and they lost in 2021 but again that vote is not really going to the other two big parties.
It is mainly going to the EFF, to the IFP and Action SA and no doubt a lot of the vote
will also go to a host of other smaller parties. What about former president Zuma's MK party?
There was one poll on that party which was done in January, results released in February.
They have given quite a high support to the MK party in KwaZulu-Natal, 24%, which is a
high number. Provincially.
Provincially, yes, for KZN. In two by-elections that we have had in KZN since the party was
formed they have actually done quite well. They have taken votes from the ANC, they have
taken votes from even the IFP but it looks as if they have taken most of the votes from
the EFF. So that will be an interesting dynamic, MK versus the EFF. You know I suppose it is
a case of if you want to go to somebody you go to the one who is most authentic and Mr.
Zuma is probably a more authentic figure of radical economic transformation than Julius
Malema. But let's see how the numbers play out.
What about all the other new parties that were in the headlines over the last three
months or so?
There are a number of, let's call them media headline parties. There is Rise Mzansi,
from Songezo Zibi, there is BOSA, Build One South Africa, Mmusi Maimane, previous
leader of the DA. There is Change Starts Now, CSN, Roger Jardim and then of course also
Mr. Zuma's party. Those are the main ones. There are also a lot of other parties. Ace
Magashule has got a party ACT, African Congress of Transformation. I suspect he will do quite
well in the Northern Free State. But really these smaller parties are, you know, they
are small fish, they are new kids on the block. One will have to see to what extent they can
get traction with the electorate.
But they can all register. So what will this mean for me as an individual voter on the
day of voting?
Well, it may mean that you won't get a ballot paper, but you will get a little ballot book.
Because as you rightly say, there will be a host of parties. What is also new this year
is that for the first time, independence can stand for election. So you will get three
ballot papers. You will get one for the national government as in the past. This year the list
will probably be much longer than what it was in the past. You will get a second ballot
paper for provincial government and then you will get a third ballot paper for independence.
And you have to wade your way through all three of them.
And do we have to vote on each one or not?
No, no. You can vote on one or two or all three or you can spoil your paper. It's a
free option you can do as you wish.
What do you think about the multi-party charter people saying there will be a new government?
I think it's a misrepresentation. The multi-party charter cannot get more than about 35 to 40
percent of the vote. Now, even if they get 40 percent, that's far away from 50 plus one.
So I think that is a gross misrepresentation. Okay, you know, it is election season, it's
the least season, people make promises and so on. One must allow for that. But I can't
see in that sense a new government in the sense that there's a group of opposition parties
that get more than 50 percent of the vote and can replace the ANC. I just don't see
that. It's not in the realm of realpolitik. Can you see the EFF and the DA and the Freedom
Front plus working together with MK to be anti-ANC? You know, it's simply a nonsense
construct. It'll also be a frightfully unstable coalition. So no, I don't think that'll happen
and it certainly won't be good for the country. What you will find is that ANC will still
be the largest political party. It will lead a coalition. It will be the responsibility
of the ANC to invite other parties to join them in a coalition government if they don't
get to 50 percent. And as such, yes, there will be other people in government, but the
ANC will still lead that government and therefore to talk about a whole new government is simply
in my view a misrepresentation. What about the provinces? In the provinces it may play
out differently, particularly in two provinces, kwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. The ANC is not
going to get 50 percent in Gauteng. They will probably get somewhere between 35 and 40,
maybe just over 40. Now that'll leave them a good 10 percent short of the 50 plus one
needed to govern the province. So the big question is then with whom will they make
a coalition deal? Just this week we've had a report from the National Executive Committee
of the ANC looking at the issue of coalitions, making it fairly clear that they're not going
to do a coalition with the EFF, not even in Gauteng. Panja Zalusufi, the Premier of Gauteng
and leader of the ANC in Gauteng, has referred to the EFF as unreliable partners. But they
are in a partnership coalition in Johannesburg at the moment. Well, it's an Ekurhuleni.
It's a kind of an arrangement and I suspect it won't last. If you look at these comments
coming through, then you may even find that those municipal coalitions do not survive.
Panyaza Lesufi is probably one of the more enthusiastic ANC members when it comes to a coalition with
the EFF. Absolutely. Likewise, the leadership of the ANC down in kwaZulu-Natal are also
sympathetic to the EFF, but they have also made it quite clear that they want to have
stable coalitions and they don't see that with either the MK or EFF. So the question
is, with whom will they go? I've written last year in August and earlier in the year,
that in May, almost a year ago, that I hope for a DAA-ANC coalition. But whether that
happens, we'll have to see. We as a country have had really bad experiences with coalition
governments that just don't work. Where did those coalitions go wrong and how can it be
made better? I think they went wrong on the very simple
principles that the focus of the coalition governments in municipalities and metros,
the focus was on who, not on how. Who is getting a job? Who will be the mayor? Who will be
the speaker? Who will be the chairperson of committees and so on? It's about who. You
just have to shuffle those letters around and get to how. How are you going to govern?
How are you going to implement your election manifesto? That is where we went wrong. We
focused on who and not on how. We don't have that culture of negotiating agreements on
how coalitions were governed, but that may be changing. And I say that because in kwaZulu-
Natal, an agreement was signed, agreed and signed between the IFP and the DA on how they're
going to manage the local governments where they are in control. Currently, they control
between them 13 councils in the kwaZulu-Natal province, and it seems to be going reasonably
well. Now, what is that agreement? It's a nine-page
agreement. It sets out what their values are. It starts with common values. It then has
common ideals. It then focuses on objectives that they want to achieve in that local government
in the term of office that is left. And lastly, how they're going to do it, practical steps.
For example, one clause in the nine-page agreement is that the municipalities which they run,
they will spend 8% of the municipal budget on maintenance. Now, it may sound like a very
minor point, but we know about maintenance and infrastructure in particularly municipalities.
So that kind of focus is a good thing. So it may be that we're now starting in South
Africa with a culture of negotiating a coalition agreement focusing on the how, not the who.
And this is of course the way it works in Europe. If you take a country like Germany,
they have had coalition governments for a very, very long time. In the last election,
it took three months between the election date and the date that the new government
took office. Why? They needed three months to negotiate a coalition agreement. The English
translation is about 127 pages. Now, we don't have to go as far as the Germans, you know,
the detail and so on. But even the Dutch, the last Dutch coalition government had a
coalition agreement of 57 pages, the English translation thereof. So there is definitely
a need in South Africa to develop coalition agreements that focuses on or that focus on
the how and not on the who. And if we can do that after the 2024 election where it is
necessary, that'll be a major step forward. But our constitution puts us in a bit of a
bind because it says, what, 14 days after the election? Yeah, absolutely. It's a very
strong point. The coalition stipulates that a new parliament, the new parliament, which
was just elected in the election, must meet within 14 days to elect a new president. From
the date of the election? From the date that the election is certified. Now, the election
is on Wednesday. It's normally certified by Saturday evening. So 14 days later, parliament
must meet and elect a new president. And so if there's one party that's got 50% plus one
of the vote, well, fine, then there's no problem. That party's candidate will become president.
If that isn't the case, then your negotiation will have to be, your first round will have
to be about who, which candidate will be supported. That'll be your first round of negotiation.
And then once you've got a president, then he will have to extend it into a wider agreement
about how that government will rule. And in the provinces, is it the same? In provinces
it's the same. They also have to meet and elect a premier and get the show on the road.
There's a lot of talk of policy uncertainty because there are so many question marks about
how these elections will play out. Yeah, that's a standard item. Every time there's an election,
the chattering glasses go into overdrive with policy uncertainty. The budget will be populist.
There will be a splurge of expenditure and so on and so forth. These are hardy perennials.
They always come back, except it never happens in real life. The splurges in spending is
not during election times. It's between elections, if you look at our record in that regard.
And we had a budget at the end of February. What did that indicate?
Well, absolutely. You've seen the media coverage. It's a very conservative budget. It's holding
the line. It is heavily criticized from the left for not spending more money on social
grants. The social grant increases below inflation. The R350 COVID grant has not been increased.
So there was absolutely no splurge in spending. That did not happen. It's a matter of factual
observation that it didn't happen. As a policy uncertainty in general, what are now the most
important policies for this country? Well, it's macroeconomic policy. That was confirmed
by the budget. And then it is fixing electricity, it's fixing logistics, railways and ports,
and it's fixing water. And in all three of those respects, the state of the nation speech
early in February and the budget speech towards the end of February all made the same point,
which is already in the public domain, that in all these spheres of where we have government
monopolies like in energy, like in ports, like in railways, the private sector will
be allowed into those sectors. So we're moving away from the model of a state-owned monopoly
which run those network industries to a model where there will be state company, yes, like
Transnet, like Eskom, but next to it, there will be private companies rendering a service
in those industries, making capital investments, bringing management and so on. It's quite
a profound change for South Africa. We have a tradition in this country which goes back
150 years, where the state runs those kinds of industries. They're called the network
industries. Now we're moving away from the state running them to the private sector coming
in to help. It's a big change and it's happening. And you don't see that changing? There's no
uncertainty around that? No, I don't see that changing. Absolutely not. And even if a coalition
government is formed, it won't change that. What I do see and that we must be aware of,
it takes government a long time to do things. They are not quick. You look at the deadlines
that they set themselves by when they want to do things, they normally miss those deadlines.
I think people simply underestimate how difficult it is to get things through the government
processes. There are a variety of reasons for that, but that's the reality. It takes
time. And so I think there's a problem with the speed of implementation, but not with
the certainty of what is being implemented. That sounds like the first of your so what's
actually at the end of your newsletter. But the other major point is no new government.
No, I don't think I think the idea of a new government is really, as I've said, a misrepresentation.
It's not going to happen. I think we can, even if we accept that the ANC will drop below
50 at the national level and will not be able to rule on their own, govern on their own,
they will still be the largest party. They will actually form the coalition. They will
invite other people to come in. That will be the, that doesn't look to me like a new
government. It very much looks like a continuation of a little bit of new blood coming in from
opposition parties if they form part of a coalition.
And the future of the big three in general, do you see more fragmentation?
Yeah, I think we already see that in the polls and we also see it in by-election results
that the smaller parties are all eating away from the three big ones. So it's in some,
maybe they don't reduce the support level. For example, the EFF in the polls currently
is getting about 13%. They used to be 11. So they're not losing support, but they certainly,
there's a ceiling on how much support they seem to be getting. So yes, I think that fragmentation
will continue. We will see the three big parties will not grow much. In total, they'll be less.
And I think we will see a host of smaller parties each coming in with one or two seats,
which will of course give us a parliament with more parties and will complicate the
political scene.
But you say that the major question in this election is about the provinces.
Yes, I think that's where the action will be, particularly KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng
in both those provinces. It is very unlikely that the ANC will get to 50%. It is more likely
that the multi-party charter people could get to 50%, particularly in Gauteng. It's
not a prediction. I'm just saying, you know, there's a likelihood. So yeah, those are the
two provinces to watch. And if the ANC doesn't get to 50 and the opposition parties don't
get to 50, then the question is who will form a coalition with whom? And overall, I think
the EFF is not going to be the coalition partner. But let's see how it plays out.
Thank you very much. We can only wish all our listeners happy voting.
Absolutely. Happy voting.
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