JOHANNESBURG—South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC), which has been in power for almost 30 years, but is reeling amid corruption scandals, economic mismanagement, poor delivery of services, and violent crime, faces defeat in an election that’s tentatively scheduled for May 2024, a poll indicates.
The coalition, known as the Multi-Party Charter (MPC), is led by South Africa’s second-biggest political party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), which ANC officials have described as a party of “white capitalists and their black puppets.”
The DA has promised to end some of the policies it says are hastening South Africa’s slide toward being a failed state, including the ANC’s policy of “cadre deployment”—appointing party loyalists to lead key ministries and state-owned enterprises.
“Cadre deployment has nothing to do with developing South Africa, but everything to do with the ANC putting corrupt people in positions to plunder money simply to swell ANC pockets,” DA leader John Steenhuisen, who is white, told The Epoch Times.
“The DA stands for appointing non-political experts to manage service delivery. We believe there are enough skilled people of all races in South Africa for them to be appointed on merit, not because they belong to the ruling party.”
ANC support fell to 41 percent in October from the 48 percent it drew in November 2022, “with voters citing joblessness, corruption, load shedding, and crime as the country’s largest problems.” according to Brenthurst.
Load shedding is a term used by Eskom, South Africa’s state-owned national electricity corporation, to refer to the electricity outages that have buffeted the continent’s most industrialized economy for the past 15 years and have intensified since 2020.
Eskom is failing to produce enough electricity to keep the lights on, according to energy experts. So, to prevent nationwide blackouts due to a complete grid collapse, the company cuts power to various parts of the country in stages, and it calls this “shedding load from the grid.”
Almost every day for the past three years, South Africans have been left without electricity for between four and 14 hours. Some regions have even been without power for days or weeks on end.
As a result of mismanagement and corruption at Eskom under ANC rule, according to the inquiry, power stations had fallen into disrepair, and necessary maintenance of South Africa’s power grid was never completed or was poorly done by “fly-by-night” firms often linked to ANC members.
Power cuts could cost the country’s economy 1.6 trillion rand (almost $90 billion) in 2023, South Africa’s minister of electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, said in August.
According to the survey, 83 percent of South Africans rank unemployment, corruption, load shedding, and crime as the most important issues facing the nation.
Almost 60 percent hold the ANC government of the past three decades responsible for South Africa’s problems, up from 51 percent a year ago, while only 5 percent blame apartheid for their worsening lives, down from 9 percent, the survey revealed.
In a report last year, the United Nations Development Program described South Africa’s high joblessness, particularly among its youth, as a “ticking time bomb” that could result in widespread riots.
According to Statistics South Africa, almost 65 percent of people between the ages of 15 and 24 are unemployed.
If the ANC’s Cyril Ramaphosa wins another term in office next year, “the danger is very real that we see violence in South Africa that will make the July 2021 unrest look like a tea party.” according to Chris Hattingh, head of policy analysis at the Center for Risk Analysis in Johannesburg.
“This is simply because the ANC government lacks the courage to make the economic decisions necessary to lead the country away from union-controlled economic policies, and unfriendly investor and business policies that make doing business in South Africa very onerous indeed,” he said.
“I’m not even mentioning the fact that we hardly have electricity and water services anymore.”
In July 2021, South Africa experienced its worst wave of social unrest since the end of apartheid in 1994.
After Mr. Zuma was jailed for refusing to testify at the Inquiry into State Capture, thousands of his supporters took to the streets in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal, and Gauteng, a region that includes the capital, Pretoria, and South Africa’s biggest city, Johannesburg, which is also home to many Zulus, Mr. Zuma’s ethnic group.
The protests were soon joined by thousands of unemployed people, especially youth. Mobs attacked homes in private suburbs and looted and torched businesses, warehouses, and shopping malls.
More than 350 people were killed, and more than 5,000 were injured.
“For three decades, the ANC has proved it’s incapable of addressing the socioeconomic grievances that fuel the violence that we now see every day in South Africa,” Mr. Steenhuisen said.
“It’s not creating jobs, and it’s not reducing economic inequality. Its education system is shambolic, and it has no idea how to nurture the skills this country needs to become a stable economy.
“Its inability to deliver basic services is destroying small and large businesses, the very vehicles that could be used to provide jobs.”
The latest government statistics show that there are 10 million South Africans aged 15 to 24 out of a total population of 62 million. Of these, only 2.5 million are actively looking for employment or are already employed.
“After 29 years of mismanagement, the ANC has still not figured out how to manage the economy and create jobs,” Mr. Gqubule said.
Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri, an ANC spokesman, responded by telling The Epoch Times: “These are tough economic times everywhere. I’d like to remind critics that our government created 200,000 jobs between March 2021 and March 2022, during the toughest times of the COVID pandemic.
“We have faith in the policies that are driving South Africa forward.”
However, Mr. Gqubule’s research shows that most of the 200,000 jobs were temporary posts for casual labor.
“People of all demographics who can afford to leave South Africa are leaving,“ Mr. Gqubule said. ”They’re leaving because of crime, unemployment, and decaying services. They’re leaving because of the ANC.”
“It’s a problem for the DA, and by extension any coalition it’s in, that whites are leaving the country, because almost all whites vote in elections, and almost all whites support the DA,” said Ongama Mtimka, a lecturer in the department of history and political studies at Nelson Mandela University.
STATS SA said South Africa’s white population declined by 23,191 people between 2021 and 2022. The same period saw the black population increase by more than 430,000.
The agency estimated that at least 91,000 white South Africans left the country between 2016 and 2021.
The Brenthurst poll found that the ANC’s drop in support is likely to continue until the elections “against a backdrop of an electricity crisis and collapse in infrastructure.” But it added that no single party is close to reaching the 50 percent threshold needed to win the election outright.
The poll suggests that the MPC would reach 36 percent based on the latest numbers, but that the ANC had reason to worry as the gap between it and the coalition has narrowed to 5 percentage points from 14 points a year ago.
Of concern, though, to those hoping to break the ruling party’s hegemony is that South Africa’s third-largest political party, the ultra-leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is “gaining big” in the runup to the election, according to the survey.
Brenthurst has the EFF improving its support to 17 percent from 11 percent a year ago.
“The temptation for the ANC and EFF to form a coalition may have increased following these poll numbers,” foundation director Greg Mills said.
“Such a coalition would probably result in the inclusion of EFF leaders in top government positions and the adoption of some of its populist policies, risking economic disaster on top of 17 years of low growth and infrastructural and social decay.”
EFF policies include state control of almost all forms of wealth in South Africa, including land, banks, and mines.
The party has also dedicated itself to the destruction of what it calls “white monopoly capital,” a reference to what it says is “ongoing control of wealth in South Africa by white capitalists and their ANC stooges.”
Despite their differences, the two parties have already formed coalitions to lead local governments in some metropolitan areas, including Johannesburg.
Opposition parties and civil society organizations blame the ANC–EFF coalition for plunging the city into chaos, with basic services crumbling and crime out of control.
“One way or the other, an era of fierce political competition is dawning for South Africa, which has been electorally dominated by one party for nearly 30 years,” Mr. Mills said.
He told The Epoch Times: “Victory is possible for the MPC. But it will require a level of cooperation and focus of effort and resources, and agreement on policy directions, that we have yet to see in coalition politics in South Africa.
“At the moment, voters are confused, and giving clear direction to them will be the coalition’s greatest challenge in the coming months.”
The Brenthurst poll points out that the biggest party in the coalition, the DA, now has “greater political favourability” (37 percent), than the ANC (30 percent, down from 39 percent a year ago).
It reads: “After the dismal failures of recent years which have led to the energy crisis, dilapidation of key infrastructure, and the private sector’s collapse of confidence, South Africans seem increasingly desperate for change. The onus is now on political parties to convince the public that they can deliver it.”
In the end, it’ll come down to race, according to Mr. Mtimka.
“Black voters are turning away from the ANC; of that there’s no doubt,“ he said. ”But in previous elections, it’s not like blacks have then turned in their masses to the DA. No. They just stay away from the polls; they don’t vote.
“Other than some young blacks who seem inspired by the EFF’s radical rhetoric, many black people just don’t see an alternative to the ANC, which has been their political home for generations.
“If the MPC can convince enough black voters that they are the viable alternative that’s so far been absent in South Africa, well, things are going to get interesting.”
