Mzansi heading towards coalition government post 2024 elections

The closer we get to the 2024 general elections date, the more accurate and reliable predictions and polling on possible outcomes become; and so is the political analysis of our body politics.

It’s just less than fifty days before the fat lady sings. A year ago, leading up to these elections there were talks of “2024 is our 1994” amongst some opinion makers and political parties. Others argued to the contrary that, 2024 is not our 1994, at least in the context of fundamental change that our socioeconomic challenges demand.

SA has two pronged challenges: Structural and Systemic. For any gov to succeed, it needs to grow the economy, create quality jobs, eradicate poverty, improve access to quality healthcare, housing and decolonized education. On the other hand, structurally, transformation to change patterns and ownership of means of production and the economy is urgent in order to reverse settler colonial-apartheid legacy.

However, changing hands on political power from same political players rarely translates into any fundamental change.

A clear over-arching picture emerging is that of a governing African National Congress (ANC) declining in electoral support. We get the glimpse of this through Ipsos survey that was conducted from 3rd October to 1st December 2023 and released in February 2024.

According to these surveys, ANC electoral support plummeted to 38.5% nationally. Secondly, the official opposition party, Democratic Alliance (DA), support declined to 17.3% losing the second spot to Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) at 18.3 %. EFF demonstrated growth but not enough to topple the ruling party. The DA’s decline was not as severe compared to that of the ANC.

These surveys are not predictions but a snapshot if registered voters had elections held a day after they were conducted. However, Ipsos calculated party support on scenarios of voter turnout on the elections day. These calculations put ANC at 42%, followed by the DA at 20.6% and EFF at 17.7% with moderate voter turnout.

Voter turnout scenarios show that the higher the turnout the poorer support ANC will get and the lower the turnout the better they will perform. Ipsos surveys were conducted before former president of the ANC and the country, Jacob Zuma, announced his support and voting choice for uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) on December 16th, 2023.

Ipsos findings are corroborated by a broad national survey, commissioned by Change Starts Now (CSN), conducted around same period, putting ANC at 42%, DA at 22% and EFF at 19%. Both surveys put all smaller parties sharing the spoils of just over 15%. Putting the Moonshot pact coalition to rest, there is no ounce of positive prospects there. The new arrival, MKP appears to be a star of the show with Social Research Foundation (SRF) surveys putting it at 14%. The same polls put the governing ANC at 37%, the DA at 25%, and EFF at 11%.

Important to note is that SRF, like Brenthurst Foundation, have questionable credibility as they have conflicts of interest when it relates to the DA. Therefore, their surveys need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

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Some of the new and old political parties will not make it to National Assembly (NA). Those of the new parties likely to show up with insignificant percentages are: ActionSA, Rise Mzansi (RM) and Build One SA (BOSA). The MKP seems to be growing faster than any other new entries and they are a party to watch. Of the old small political parties likely to make it back to NA are Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Freedom Front Plus (FF+), African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), African Transformation Movement (ATM) and Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC).

It would seem the MK party will take the lion’s share of votes in KZN, a good show in Mpumalanga and a base in Gauteng. Some pollsters are predicting national performance of between 6%and 10% percentage. MKP’s performance would be best seen when predictions are made a week or two before elections day.

In the 2019 general elections, 48 parties contested elections and only 13 parties made it to the NA. The top three took the lion share of seats. The 10 other small parties shared spoils of just over 10%. EFF, IFP and FF+ gained more seats with EFF being the biggest gainer with 19 more seats.

FF+ is likely to gain one or two seats because there was never major shift within its constituency. It will eat little more from the DA right wing constituency. Most of black leaders who were roped into the DA leadership ranks, by Helen Zille, have left the official opposition party and clearly took with them their supporters. This support base is most likely to be eaten by ActionSA, Rise Mzansi and Mmusi Maimane’s BOSA. The IFP had higher prospects before the emergence of MKP. They will stagnate on their last growth. The MKP seems to have a strong base in KwaZulu Natal (KZN), and its constituency are disgruntled ANC supporters who could’ve voted largely for the IFP and less so the EFF.

The Zuma-backed MKP will gain voters from disgruntled ANC supporters who could’ve potentially voted IFP and EFF had MKP not formed. So, both IFP and EFF lost potential out of emergence of the MKP and ANC has lost a base.

KZN and Western Cape (WC) have electoral history of moving votes from one party to another at least once in our country’s history of democratic elections. As such it wouldn’t be surprising to see major shifts in those two provinces. Gauteng would have fierce contestation given its diverse voters’ profile. At the other remaining six provinces, the ANC is likely to win by very thin margins in Free State (FS), Northwest (NW), and Mpumalanga (MP). It will win comfortably in Limpopo (LP), Eastern Cape (EC) and Northern Cape (NP).

The DA is showing a decline in support in the Western Cape, and this might return it into coalition government. According to Ipsos provincial surveys, DA support was at 44%, ANC 22% and EFF at 9%. ACDP and FF+ have always had a support in the WC. It was surprising to see Patriotic Alliance (PA) not showing up significantly in the WC as they seem to fish for support from coloured communities. WC has highest coloured demographics and are the majority. Perhaps we should wait for more recent predictions.

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The scale of ANC’s established decline will determine permutation for coalition scenarios. The more they lose the less choices they have for coalitions. Dropping below 40% would be bad for the former liberation movement of Oliver Tambo. If the ANC drops by anything above 8%, it would mean they have three options to choose a coalition partner to form government with – the MKP, DA and EFF. If they decline with less than 5%, they could easily get few smaller parties to form a government with.

Both EFF and DA have strong ideological posture at the extreme opposite ends; left and right of the ANC. The current ideological faction in charge of the ANC will most likely prefer to work with DA. Meanwhile, the wounded left leaning faction will prefer EFF or MKP. However, the neoliberal ideologues poor electoral performance could weaken them from within, giving reemergence of pro left faction within the ranks. They will push the ANC in the direction of the EFF and MKP in particular. Both EFF and MKP will demand the resignation of Cyril Ramaphosa as part of their negotiations. At least the EFF is on record. President Ramaphosa will likely fall on his sword should ANC perform below 40%.

Given what we know so far, unless some unforeseen events happen in coming few weeks, it is clear we are heading into ANC-MKP or ANC-DA or ANC-EFF coalitions. There is no evidence of any other possible coalitions without the ANC. It would be prudent for political parties to begin to internally start strategizing based on these possible scenarios. This will assist in inevitable negotiations that awaits us from the 29th of May evening until around the 4th of June or so.

The ANC-DA coalition will be the favourite coalition amongst white monopoly capital (WMC) and liberal establishment. It’s an outcome they have always wanted. The markets will respond positively towards this. But for the majority of African people, this would be a setback as it would mean full capital take over – especially knowing the DA’s anti-transformation and racist mantra.

The ANC-EFF or ANC-MKP coalition will be met with strong pushback from largely institutionalised pro capitalist and neoliberal establishments. The Rand, investor confidence and markets will be some of the tools used to fight back.

South Africans in general should resist and condemn these tactics as they undermine the democratic principles of an electoral system in our young democracy. The will of the people shouldn’t be trampled upon by business interests. We should reject an American-style politics in which corporate oligarchies dictates terms for politicians.

~ written by TT Maenetša: Race, Culture and Socioeconomic Commentator.