South Africa is entering a phase of “necessary uncertainty” following the ruling African National Congress’ (ANC) poor performance in the elections and the surge of former President Jacob Zuma’s new MK party. So says Dr Ina Gouws of the Department of Political Studies and Governance at the University of the Free State. “I understand that South Africans are even afraid of what’s to come, a bit uncertain of what’s to come. But I think it’s a necessary phase for the country to go in.” She says it is now up to South Africans to insist on political leaders being mature and pragmatic to make sure that coalitions are stable – and not “a circus like we’ve seen in many of the local authorities”. Dr Gouws dissects the voting trends – and looks at the implications for the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
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Extended transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Chris Steyn (00:04.754)
It’s day two after millions of South Africans went to the polls in the most important election since 1994. We get an update from Dr. Ina Gouws of the Faculty of Political Science at Free State University. Welcome, Doctor.
I’m just going to have a quick look at the IEC dashboard to see where we are. It was blank earlier this morning. That gave everybody quite a fright and set the conspiracy theorists into a spiral. So, okay, the ANC is standing at 41.89, the DA at 23.53, MK at 11.11, EFF at 9.54 and the PA at 2.7. Okay, what’s your first reaction to those results, Doctor?
Dr Ina Gouws (01:04.72)
Of course the the biggest surprise is just how much of an impact MK had on the elections and then the biggest upset of course is the fact that the ANC will not get you know the majority in Parliament. We saw that sort of trend happening the moment the election results started to come in and people realised listen this might be the case. And the amount of support they lost, just how much it was, is also, I think, a bit of a surprise. Certainly for them. I mean, more than 15% drop in support is significant.
So for the party, I think there’s lots of conversations that kind of have to happen apart from the fact that they have a very short period of time…where they have to decide what they are going to do and who they’re going to talk to with regards to a possible coalition government.
To that effect, the party internal structures are going to play a big role. They have very factionalised support within the party at the moment and some of them will veer towards someone like the EFF to be part of it. Some will even say the DA, some will say okay fine let’s bring the MK in depending on their animosity against President Zuma and so forth.
So these are not going to be easy conversations to have for the ANC.
And then to see what it’s going to do to President Cyril Ramaphosa himself as the leader and the face of the party. He’s very popular as a politician. He’s quite popular within the ANC as they are right now. But will that, will his support within the party be strong enough for that group to make the decision to first of all keep him as the leader of the party and then…because the leadership conference is coming up. And second of all, to make the decision of who will be with them in government and what that would mean. And then ultimately what that would mean for the country. So those things are important.
And then when it comes to the provinces specifically, various shifts, as we can see, it’s almost certain that the ANC will not have a majority in either Gauteng or the Northern Cape province. They lost KwaZulu-Natal for all intents and purposes to MK who will be able to decide who goes in with them in a possible coalition. So although they have Limpopo and Northwest, and Eastern Cape still has very strong support for the ANC. In the Free State they lost some support. They just got over the line to still keep the province in there. So, and they all but, you know, collapsed in the Western Cape. So there’s lots of shifts happening and our provinces are going to look a bit different. So a shift, various shifts on national and provincial level in this elections. We expected that, of course, but the extent to which that happened and who the role players really was in the end is something that we couldn’t quite foresee.
Chris Steyn (05:01.65)
What do you ascribe MK’s phenomenal performance to?
Dr Ina Gouws (05:07.632)
Well, there’s lots of conversations about tribalism, that people voted along tribal lines, that the Zulu people, the Zulu-speaking people, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, voted for MK, that certain areas within certain provinces like Mpumalanga, where larger Zulu-speaking people are, voted for MK. Of course, MK completely rejects that notion and say that it’s simple civil society across the country, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, who are disillusioned with the ANC and therefore voted for MK and their particular message. So, you know, you can make your own decision, but those are the conversations happening at the moment. And you can even call it accusations happening of why they got the support that they have.
The challenge for MK now is the internal strife that’s happening. They have court cases for members who made the party see the light, who wants President Zuma to not be the leader, to not be the face of the party anymore, and what that would do to certain of their members, the support within the structures within the party in the conversations coming up, and what it will do to them in forming a possible administration in KwaZulu-Natal. And of course, the Zuma family, particularly his daughter and so forth, who are very staunch leaders or visible leaders in MK and what that will do to those kinds of battles within the party. I think those things can very early on. derail any positive process that they might want to have. And in the bigger picture, the kind of support they got is certainly mostly ANC voters that they got for themselves. If you see the percentage of loss the ANC had and the percentage MK had, you know, there’s a correlation there. MK also took some support away from the EFF.
So the EFF will have to sit and have a discussion there as well for themselves and say, you know, so what happened? How is it that our message didn’t get traction? You know, they are no longer the third, they are seeing to be no longer the third largest party in Parliament, if this happens. So there are definitely some, you know, some conversations going to happen there, I’m sure, particularly about the leadership of the EFF.
And then the DA particularly grew a little bit. They can’t get to 30%, but they didn’t lose that many votes. They made up for the major losses I think they had in 2019. They made up for it a little bit in 2021, and now a little bit more. They keep the Western Cape even with the impact of the Patriotic Alliance.
And now these parties will look to the Northern Cape, specifically the Patriotic Alliance and the DA in a possible cooperation there to put themselves as a partnership over the line for the Northern Cape.
So I think it’s a question of general disillusionment with the ANC, first and foremost, mistrust from the population that took votes away from them and they for the first time saw MK as an alternative. But we must also look at, and I hope I’m not rambling on, you must stop me. But the turnout is very significant for me. We…
Chris Steyn (09:12.69)
No continue.
Chris Steyn (09:20.05)
It was very high in KZN, you know, higher in KZN than it was in the country generally.
Dr Ina Gouws (09:22.864)
Yes, in the country. So you can see where the focus of, first of all, the campaigns were for MK and where their major support comes from.
First, and then country-wide, the turnout is problematic. It’s even lower than it was last time. And what does that mean? It means that long lines in the suburbs didn’t mean that the voter turnout was high. Elsewhere, where the largest population was, the turnout was low. People, the political parties messaging, particularly the opposition, who had the most, you know, wide opportunity because of the failures of government to get a message across to people to say, listen, vote for us, vote for better, turn out in your masses. That message doesn’t come across. People didn’t go to the vote.
And yes, we have to look at the IEC and some of their failures in delays in the process that kept people, either turned them away from their voting stations or made them to not go to begin with.
So we have to consider that impact on the turnout as well. And then you have to look at the fact that if this is 58% of registered voters who went to the polls, there are lots of eligible South Africans who are not even registered. So there’s lots to think about.
Chris Steyn (10:38.322)
Some people left the queues.
Dr Ina Gouws (11:02.8)
It comes to political participation of South Africans of eligible voters who first of all, why don’t you want to get registered? And if you are registered, why didn’t you go and vote? Why did only 58% of those who can vote ultimately show up? That talks to the legitimacy of our democracy, of governments to come if not enough South Africans decide on who gets to govern. So politicians…even civil society organisations, all of us need to take a strong look at that aspect because that’s going to, like I said, have a great impact on the legitimacy of our processes and ultimately our government.
Chris Steyn (11:44.498)
I just want to go back to former president Jacob Zuma’s party MK. If the ANC had dealt more decisively with Zuma, when it had the opportunity to do so, do you think it would have made a difference? Did they grossly underestimate him? Has this result actually brought, has this result been brought about by the mishandling of Zuma?
Dr Ina Gouws (12:11.216)
You can have that argument, yes, when they started seeing the corruption and all of that and immediately started acting when they should have. Yes, that might have made a bit of a difference, but that doesn’t mean that Zuma’s support would have just vanished. He was a very popular leader for large parts of ANC supporters. So what it meant for him and the support he has, the love they have for him even, might not have made such a big difference. What the surprise was that he was going to get back into the political sphere with a political party – and how much impact that would have. I don’t think people thought that that was the road he was going to do, especially with the fact that he’s busy with various court cases still against him, which does not deter his supporters, it would seem. So and then people who from that cohort, if you will, said, listen, let’s make this party see the light. Let’s make him the face of it. And that it worked. You know, it worked. And I think even for the ANC itself, that was not something they foresaw. And certainly not that it would have had this big of an impact. I think they saw this and this is a guy who was thrown out because he helped facilitate State Capture. That should be enough for voters to say, listen, we don’t trust him. That did not happen. So other things, a message that MK has, whatever support they have, you know, resonated with those who ended up voting for them. And that is something that is going to be under scrutiny for a long time to come. And remember, we have municipal elections coming up in two years where a party like that can have a great impact there on the ground in municipalities, in those legislatures. So whatever any other political party thinks of it, they have to consider the impact MK can have even further down the line.
Chris Steyn (14:54.194)
Do you think, or would you describe this, the outcome thus far as good for the country or not?
Dr Ina Gouws (15:00.912)
Yes, you know, if you want to consolidate a democracy and democratic processes and get to a point where that much of a dominance of one political party starts to to wane, to wind down and for other political parties to come into the fray, I think it’s a good thing. Yes, there is uncertainty. And I understand that South Africans are even afraid of what’s to come, a bit uncertain of what’s to come. But I think it’s a necessary phase for the country to go in. It’s necessary for us to take this on, this phase, and see what happens.
And you can, as a South African, as a voter, whether it’s as a member of political parties, supporters, or civil society organisations, or whoever, to keep these leaders to account in a way we never have before.
We need leaders in these conversations with cooperative governments that needs to happen now, either with coalitions or whatever form these governments take, either national or on provincial level. We need leaders to now be very mature, very adult about these conversations. It can’t be about just getting positions, about personalities, for a 1% party to say, yes, you need me, therefore my person must be the president or the premier or anything like that. That whatever conversation happens, that it’s mature for the sake of the betterment of the country and that province. And we didn’t have, we don’t have leaders like that. And even if there is something in them, we didn’t see that from them. And as South Africans, we have to now insist on them being mature and being pragmatic to make sure that these coalitions, these governments are stable…that they’re not a circus like we’ve seen in many of the local authorities and the coalitions we’ve seen. So yes, a necessary phase for our country. Yes, uncertain, but I think it’s…
Dr Ina Gouws (17:25.648)
Ultimately, if we can get this right and get the way of doing things right from the start and make sure that it’s fair, that you still remember who people voted for, even if it’s not 50% and more. If 40% still wanted a particular party to be in charge, you have to honour that in your conversation. You can’t just disregard the will of South African voters. And hopefully our leaders will have, you know, that kind of approach and we must insist that they do. So yeah, it’s a bit of instability coming. And it’s about, you know, it’s up to our leaders now to make it a stable transition into what will be the future from now on.
Chris Steyn (18:21.81)
Thank you. That was Dr. Ina Gouws of the Faculty of Political Science at Free State University talking to BizNews about the election results that have come in so far. Thank you, Dr. Gouws.
Dr Ina Gouws (18:34.704)
Thank you very much. I’m just helping you. It’s the Faculty of Humanities and the Department of Political Studies and Governance. That’s fine. It’s a long one. Thank you.
Chris Steyn (18:41.361)
Thank you. Thank you very much for that correction. Thank you. I’m Chris Steyn.
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