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, jplantman.co.za. I am Ruda Landman and I am your host.
Hello and welcome to this podcast which accompanies JP's newsletter dated 8 April 2024. It's titled
Simply Election Update. So we have 51, 52 parties?
Yes, indeed. In 2019, the last general election, national election, we had 48, so it's a few
more. Plus the independents that joined the fray this time.
And the new kid on the block is Mr Zuma's Umqonto We Siswe party, the MK party. How
do you see their impact?
Well, so far the impact is very, very interesting. We don't have that many opinion polls to go
on. We only have three, but if we take the average of the three polls, then they're polling
at the moment about 11% nationally. In the KwaZiDuna Tal province, they poll about 20
to 24%. So they're clearly very strong there, but it also gives them a national footprint.
Does that mean that they are the biggest party at the moment according to the polls in UKZN?
It does suggest that, yes. It does suggest that. We can talk about the provinces later,
but yes, they are the biggest at the moment. Now, I think what one must discount here is
that they're having quite a nice bounce because of all the publicity surrounding the formation
of the party. And we must see to what extent that will last. And of course, one must also
see to what extent the party can survive the other party's machinery coming into action,
election machinery coming into action. So, you know, one must treat these numbers with
a little bit of caution, but clearly they're having an impact.
Where do they find their support? Where does it come from?
It's very interesting. It comes from the ANC. It also comes a little bit from the AFP, but
it also looks as if they have, well, it doesn't look, they have certainly put a lid on the
support of the EFF. So, people who in theory would have voted EFF or should vote EFF, if
you look at profile, it looks as if they're not going to the EFF. They're rather going
to MK. And in that sense, they're putting a lid on what the EFF can achieve. So, so
far, we can say there are two consequences from MK entering the fray. The one is they're
taking support away from the ANC, which I think will tilt the ANC decisively below 50%.
And secondly, they're putting a lid on what the EFF can do. And that must make Mr. Malema
very, very unhappy. So, if we just compare what we have now to our previous election
note, in the previous election note, we had the average for the ANC sitting at about 45.
It's now sitting at 40. The average for the ANC sitting, for the DA rather, sitting at
23. It's now sitting at 24, basically the same. For the EFF, it was 13%. It's now 11.
On counter, of course, there was nothing because they were not there yet. They also now poll
11. So, if you take the 11 of EFF and 11 of MK, you get 22. And that sort of intuitively
feels right. And then the IFP, according to these polls, have lost a little bit of support.
They went from 5% to 3%. So, to answer your question, where does this support comes from?
It comes from the ANC. It comes from the IFP. And it comes from a pool of voters that probably
would have voted EFF, but is now preferring MK.
Each voter will get three ballot papers this time, as opposed to two the last time. How
exactly does it work?
It's complicated. The change is because of independence. You will recall that there was
a big hullabaloo, constitutional court applications and agitation and so on. And the legislation
was changed. And now independence can stand for the national parliament and they can stand
for provincial parliament. Now, in order to accommodate the independence, there will now
be three ballot papers. The first one, which will elect 200 members of the National Assembly,
you simply vote for political parties. So, the 50 odd parties will be on the list and
you choose who's your favourite and that's it. The second ballot paper will be the same.
It will be the list of parties participating and you choose your party. Or on the second
list there will also be independence. So, you have to decide. Do you choose a party
or do you choose an independent? You'll have one vote only and you'll make your choice.
And that is the, if I can put it like that, the second 200 members.
Correct. That's the remainder of the 400 members for the National Assembly. So, the second
200, as you put it, that will be elected there. And then the third ballot paper is to elect
the provincial parliament or the provincial legislature. That is a combination of political
parties and independence and you choose who you want to have there. Now, I think I was
just pointing out that at the moment, although we have more than 50 political parties participating,
there are on the national list only six independents and on the various provincial lists another
five. So, you're looking at a total of 11 independents and you must ask yourself the
question was all this hullabaloo now really worth it? It's a very meager harvest, but
that's a different point.
Then of course, one of the main worries for the country as a whole, what happens if no
one gets 50% in the first place? How will parliament then elect a president? What if
there's a deadlock?
Okay. The procedure is fairly straightforward. Within 14 days after the election results
are declared. Now, the election is on Wednesday the 29th. It'll probably be the voting and
the verification and the auditing was normally completed by Saturday. So, by Saturday the
second of June, the electoral commission will announce the results. Then 14 days from that
date, parliament must meet and they have to choose a president. That's their first order
of business.
And the chairman in that case is the Chief Justice.
Chief Justice. Yeah. And he doesn't vote, of course. So, it's the 400 members of the
National Assembly. You will need 201 votes to become president. If you don't get 201
votes on the first round of voting, then the candidate with the least number of votes will
fall away and you vote again. Candidate with the least number of votes fall away, vote
again and you carry on until somebody has got 201. In the unlikely event after a number
of voting rounds that nobody gets a majority, but they get the same number of votes, say
190 each or 185 votes each. Then parliament has to adjourn for the week and then come
back and try again. Now, obviously in that week there will then be horse trading and
deal making and negotiation and so on. Come back after a week, vote again and hopefully
you get somebody that'll have 201 votes and then you have a president. If again parliament
cannot elect a president, then parliament has to be dissolved and the country must have
new elections. Now, I don't think there's anybody that'll have the stomach for that,
all the energy, all the money. So, the pressure on political parties will be enormous to come
to some kind of a consensus, some kind of an agreement and elect a president.
That's the president, but then we're back to the question of coalitions because if no
party has 50% and for the first time really now JP, you are saying you don't think the
ANC is going to get there. So, how do you see it?
Yeah, if MK does as well as the polls suggest they will do, then the ANC cannot get to 50.
I think that's just mathematically not possible. So, what will then have to happen, they will
have to invite coalition partners. Now again, it depends by how much they miss 50. If they
miss 50 by 2%, let's say they get 48, well then it will be very easy to make a coalition
of the IFP. They will have 3 or 4% of the vote and you can run. And in fact, the leader
of the IFP, Mr. Slavisa said that he is willing to do what he calls a government of national
unity, i.e. code language for I will make a deal with the ANC because that's what we
did in 1994. So, that door is certainly open. If they miss it by a bigger margin, say 10%,
so the ANC only gets 40%. Now they are 10 short of 50. Then the IFP and other small
parties won't help them. Then they will have to look at a bigger party and then their choice
will be either the DA on the one side or the EFF and MK on the other side. I think it's
highly unlikely that you will see a coalition with the EFF and MK at national level. I think
it's very, very unlikely. What makes you say that?
Well, a number of things. First of all, the fight between MK and ANC is a blood feud.
It's a brutal threat and we all know how vicious that can be and how people just don't count
work together around that. If you look at the EFF, a number of signals are coming from
the political arena telling us that they are struggling to give substance to the coalition
agreements that they have. I think the majority of people in the ANC do not want to go with
the EFF. As I said in the last note, your support for the ANC EFF coalition is mainly
located in the Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal provinces. That's where the push for the EFF is. The
rest of the country, not so much. I mean the rest of the ANC in the country. So I don't
think that will happen. I think if it comes down to a choice between EFF on the one hand
or DA on the other hand, I think the ANC will go with the DA. Then you have a broad coalition
of the middle. That coalition will enjoy the support of at least two thirds of South Africans.
That can then have interesting consequences in the longer term, medium to longer term,
largely around a reconfiguration of our politics. What I think we're going to see in the short
term after the election is that the parties on the left, that's the EFF, it's Mr. Zuma's
party, it's ACMK, it's Ace Machashula's party, ACT, African Congress of Transformation, and
a few other, call them left-wing parties. I think they will come together in some kind
of an arrangement. What we have at the moment is the MPC, the multi-party charter or the
Moonshot coalition. You have them on the right of the ANC. I think you're going to see a
similar Moonshot developing on the left of the ANC, quite soon after the election. If
they're excluded from power, they're excluded from government, these left-wing parties will
have an incentive to come together. Mr. Zuma has already alluded to that. You'll then have
a left-wing Moonshot coalition. You will have a right-wing Moonshot coalition. You will
have the ANC and the DA in the middle. Then you can have over a period of time, five years
or more, you can have a reconfiguration. That reconfiguration, I think, conceptually will
come down to the following. You will have on the right, people with free market thinking.
That's the DA and that group of people. In the middle, you will have the ANC and parts
of the DA working with what I would call a social democratic value system. On the left,
you will have RET, radical economic transformation. That's a nice little division, certainly in
terms of ideas between the main political groupings.
You've described that as a healthy development. I think it's very healthy. In South Africa
and in the Anglo-Saxon world where our political tradition was formed, we're not used to coalitions
or the idea of social democracy. Americans, for example, don't understand it at all. Neither
do the English. In Europe, it's a standard thing. It's a very, very standard thing. Germany,
most successful economy on the continent, has been run by a social democratic value
system ever since the Second World War. I think for South Africa, in our circumstances,
a social democratic solution is quite a good one and appealing one. You will then have
free markets, social democratic, radical economic transformation.
That can be, I'm now really going speculating wild here and I'm talking long term, but that
can help to replace identity politics. Then you move from the current regime of identity
politics to a regime where you have identity politics, but also a value based system that
underlies your choice. That's why I think it will be a healthy development.
In summary, so what? First, the MK Party?
Yeah, first, the MK Party is affecting the ANC quite clearly. If they survive the ANC's
counter campaign, they can get the numbers that the polls suggest and they will take
4 or 5% away nationally from the ANC. Paradoxically, the second impact of the MK is that they are
putting a lid on the growth of the EFF. I think that'll be a bitter pill for Mr. Malema
to swallow and he'll be very disappointed, but that's the way the cookie is scrambling
at the moment.
So what for the multi-party charter?
The multi-party charter has got no chance of realizing their ambition, their public
ambition of replacing the government. They're polling at about 34% at the moment, 33, 34.
Even if they go up to 40% by election day, there's still a hell of a distance from 40%
to 50%. So they're not going to replace the new government, not going to happen. The fact
that people claim that I think is a bit of a misrepresentation. But constituents of the
multi-party charter can indeed join up with the ANC. The DA, for example, the IFP, those
are very real possibilities. Yeah, and I think what we're going to see, as I've said, is
a national, on a national level, the ANC-IFP coalition. And you may also see that in the
provinces, but the provincial situation becomes more difficult, more interests, more parties.
So let's see what the final vote count is before we pronounce.
So then the only thing to say is happy voting.
Absolutely. Go and vote and happy voting.
Thank you very much. Goodbye.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to the So What podcast. If you enjoy this content, please don't forget
to leave a review and a rating and please consider subscribing so you don't miss any
future episodes. Also, tell your friends. Remember, you can find a written version of
all JP's content at jplandman.co.za.