Defections, domination, dates - and Des van Rooyen: The Electoral Road Show with Wayne Sussman

In the latest edition of Electoral Road Show with Analyst Wayne Sussman, he talks to Chris Steyn about the group of high-profile defectors that have just abandoned the African National Congress (ANC) for the Democratic Alliance (ANC) in the Western Cape, with the Western Cape’s “Fikile Mbalula”, ANC Provincial Secretary Neville Delport, leading the pack. Sussman dissects the leadership crisis at former President Jacob Zuma’s MKP with Chief Whip Colleen Makhubele out-and-in and former “Weekend Special” Finance Minister Des van Rooyen in-and-not as well as the suspension of former Judge John Hlope. Sussman further analyses the results of last night’s by-elections, and speaks about his recent engagement with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) as it targets next November (2026) for critical elections..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:02.074)Welcome to the Electoral Roadshow with Analyst Supremo, Wayne Sussman and me, Chris Steyn. Welcome, Wayne. Wayne Sussman (00:11.842)Great to speak to you again, Chris. Chris Steyn (00:14.852)Before we go to last night's by-election results, let us speak about those high-profile defictions from the African National Congress to the Democratic Alliance in the Western Cape. Wayne Sussman (00:28.142)Yeah, so we are about to get into Defection Silly Season. It typically happens when we reach the end of a local government, period of local government. Of course, this period will end in 2026. The elections will be either late 2026 or early 2027. So I've always taken…When I was younger, I'd get very excited about defections. I think one has to be somewhat cynical, but you must always look at defections and its merit. And yesterday we saw the former and very former, sorry, the recently former, the person who's recently the Provincial Secretary of the ANC. That is the equivalent of Fikile Mbalula in the Western Cape for the ANC, a man called Neville Delport defect to the Democratic Alliance with two other sitting ward councilors. Actually, one of the ward councillors who defected yesterday, we spoke about a few weeks ago because he won, he retained a seat for the ANC in that Bonnievale area. I…people can go back and watch and listen to it. So, he was one of the councillors who crossed over and another councillor in the Cederberg Municipality on the West Coast. So Neville Delport is significant. And I want to remind the viewers, there's some context here. We know that a few days ago, the ANC reconfigured its Western Cape Task Team for the elections and brought back Ibrahim Rasool, who was leading the ANC in the Western Cape 27 years ago - and for all intents and purposes is leading the ANC today in the Western Cape. And one of the casualties here was Neville Delport. Now I gave Neville Delport a ton of credits between the… Wayne Sussman (02:23.265)…period of 2022 to 2024, where you saw the ANC, particularly in the West Coast region, really doing well in by-elections, really doing well. And they ran out of road in the 2024 election, and that's continued since then. So I think Neville Delport's star was dimming in the ANC, but it was surprising. I mean, I always have spoken about the element of surprise in politics. I was surprised that he walked over to the DA. I was surprised that the councillor who just won a by-election in Bonneville for the ANC walked over. The DA will now fill the two ward councillors in by-elections and try to win those wards back. I think what this speaks to me in this game is one, that the ANC particularly amongst Coloured voters in rural areas of the Western Cape…to remind people they're based in the Western Cape or townships like Nyanga, Langa, Khayelitsa and then small towns across the length and breadth of Western Cape. It's clear that many Coloured ward councillors in these areas are seeing that the writing is going to be on the wall in the next election. I'm not saying that ANC is going to lose significant ground in those densely populated areas where lots of voters are in the City of Cape Town. I'm talking about the more rural areas. And I expect more people from rural...Coloured ward councillors to walk over to either the DA or the PA. But just one other thing I want to say very quickly is that this comes on the back of what happened last week where we saw two Mayoral committees, senior people of the DA in George - and to remind people, George is the third most populous municipality in the Western Cape, walk over to the PA. So we are going to see this on steroids…Wayne Sussman (04:21.149)…as we approach the festive season and electoral silly season of councillors particularly leaving the ANC to either the DA or the PA and some DA councillors moving over to the PA. Chris Steyn (04:33.488)Meanwhile, over at the party of former President Jacob Zuma, MKP, there has been another leadership crisis. Wayne Sussman (04:47.093)Yeah, so again, uMkhonto we Sizwe was the standout success of the 2024 election. The reason why the ANC had its worst ever performance in an election is largely due to one party and that’s uMkhonto we Sizwe . This is a party which came so close to winning KwaZulu-Natal outright. This is a party - we’re to move to Mpumalanga later and analyse by-election results - which really damaged the ANC standing in that once impenetrable stronghold of Mpumalanga. This is a party which made big inroads in Gauteng. And you can be the most dyed-in-the-wool MK supporter, and you cannot, but you would have to admit that these squabbles cannot be good for MK's brand. It cannot be good for uMkhonto we Sizwe as we approach a pivotal year in South African politics as we go to the local government elections, that you keep chopping and changing your Chief Whips. I mean, we're now hearing and it's hard to keep up. So first of all, the optics of it. There was Desmond van Rooyen from Carltonville, I think his from Carltonville, became known as the Weekend Special because he was sworn in as the Minister of Finance and then removed a few days later. We remember what that did to the Rand. We remember what that did to Zuma's government’s standing amongst investors. So the optics of midnight maneuvers by former President Zuma. There's a record of them not going well, certainly when it involves the name Desmond van Rooyen. So here we first learned that, and I hope I've got this right, that Colleen Makhubele was removed and Desmond van Rooyen replaced her. Wayne Sussman (06:41.407)And now we learn a few hours later that there are rumors that John Hlope, a very senior person, obviously with experience as a judge, has not only been fired, before he was fired, he's quit the party. So this is a significant person in the party. And the chaos ensues. And when we look at the by-election results, it kind of makes sense to me that if you're not going to run a steady ship, if your members of Parliament and your members of Provincial Legislature and those few ward councillors and one or two PR councillors are saying, seeing absolute chaos on a national level, what kind of confidence and hope are you going to have that the party will run a steady ship into this election? Chris Steyn (07:29.872)Okay, let's go to last night's by-election results when at least the ANC did cling on. Wayne Sussman (07:41.676)Yeah, so there only two seats. Let's start with the one about where the ANC clung on. Govan Mbeki municipality, this is around the Secunda area, the Highveld Ridge of Mpumalanga. And there was a by-election in the Embalenhle township just outside Secunda. And again, this is a 100% township ward. There's no...It's part of the suburb included here. And essentially the ANC held on. This was always going to be tough because a high profile ward councillor quitting the party, quite public, he's well known in the area. And he thought that the ANC might actually lose the seat, but the ANC clung on. They won 44% of the vote, down a few percentage points. In second place. So by the way, the ANC would be delighted that they clung onto the seat. But in second place was the Democratic Alliance, which I think is a significant result for the party. They grew from 17% to 27%. They're well out in second place. And essentially, what this means is the DA also - there only three voting districts in this ward - the DA won one of the voting districts, is that we are now seeing a pattern of results around the Witbank Secunda area of the DA doing well in by-elections. They won a award recently in the small town of Ga-Nala, formerly known as Kriel, quite a more diverse seat. Here they've got over 27% in an Mpumalanga township seat. The DA will be very satisfied. The EFF were in third place, essentially doing what they did the last time. Now, even though this was the first time uMkhonto we Sizwe contested this award in a by-election, if we look back at what they did here in 2024, they gave the ANC a major fright. In 2024, that's about 17 months ago, they got 30%, almost a third of the vote in this township seat.Welcome to the Electoral Roadshow with Analyst Supremo, Wayne Sussman and me, Chris Steyn. Welcome, Wayne. Wayne Sussman (00:11.842)Great to speak to you again, Chris. Chris Steyn (00:14.852)Before we go to last night's by-election results, let us speak about those high-profile defictions from the African National Congress to the Democratic Alliance in the Western Cape. Wayne Sussman (00:28.142)Yeah, so we are about to get into Defection Silly Season. It typically happens when we reach the end of a local government, period of local government. Of course, this period will end in 2026. The elections will be either late 2026 or early 2027. So I've always taken…When I was younger, I'd get very excited about defections. I think one has to be somewhat cynical, but you must always look at defections and its merit. And yesterday we saw the former and very former, sorry, the recently former, the person who's recently the Provincial Secretary of the ANC. That is the equivalent of Fikile Mbalula in the Western Cape for the ANC, a man called Neville Delport defect to the Democratic Alliance with two other sitting ward councilors. Actually, one of the ward councillors who defected yesterday, we spoke about a few weeks ago because he won, he retained a seat for the ANC in that Bonnievale area. I…people can go back and watch and listen to it. So, he was one of the councillors who crossed over and another councillor in the Cederberg Municipality on the West Coast. So Neville Delport is significant. And I want to remind the viewers, there's some context here. We know that a few days ago, the ANC reconfigured its Western Cape Task Team for the elections and brought back Ibrahim Rasool, who was leading the ANC in the Western Cape 27 years ago - and for all intents and purposes is leading the ANC today in the Western Cape. And one of the casualties here was Neville Delport. Now I gave Neville Delport a ton of credits between the… Wayne Sussman (02:23.265)…period of 2022 to 2024, where you saw the ANC, particularly in the West Coast region, really doing well in by-elections, really doing well. And they ran out of road in the 2024 election, and that's continued since then. So I think Neville Delport's star was dimming in the ANC, but it was surprising. I mean, I always have spoken about the element of surprise in politics. I was surprised that he walked over to the DA. I was surprised that the councillor who just won a by-election in Bonneville for the ANC walked over. The DA will now fill the two ward councillors in by-elections and try to win those wards back. I think what this speaks to me in this game is one, that the ANC particularly amongst Coloured voters in rural areas of the Western Cape…to remind people they're based in the Western Cape or townships like Nyanga, Langa, Khayelitsa and then small towns across the length and breadth of Western Cape. It's clear that many Coloured ward councillors in these areas are seeing that the writing is going to be on the wall in the next election. I'm not saying that ANC is going to lose significant ground in those densely populated areas where lots of voters are in the City of Cape Town. I'm talking about the more rural areas. And I expect more people from rural...Coloured ward councillors to walk over to either the DA or the PA. But just one other thing I want to say very quickly is that this comes on the back of what happened last week where we saw two Mayoral committees, senior people of the DA in George - and to remind people, George is the third most populous municipality in the Western Cape, walk over to the PA. So we are going to see this on steroids…Wayne Sussman (04:21.149)…as we approach the festive season and electoral silly season of councillors particularly leaving the ANC to either the DA or the PA and some DA councillors moving over to the PA. Chris Steyn (04:33.488)Meanwhile, over at the party of former President Jacob Zuma, MKP, there has been another leadership crisis. Wayne Sussman (04:47.093)Yeah, so again, uMkhonto we Sizwe was the standout success of the 2024 election. The reason why the ANC had its worst ever performance in an election is largely due to one party and that’s uMkhonto we Sizwe . This is a party which came so close to winning KwaZulu-Natal outright. This is a party - we’re to move to Mpumalanga later and analyse by-election results - which really damaged the ANC standing in that once impenetrable stronghold of Mpumalanga. This is a party which made big inroads in Gauteng. And you can be the most dyed-in-the-wool MK supporter, and you cannot, but you would have to admit that these squabbles cannot be good for MK's brand. It cannot be good for uMkhonto we Sizwe as we approach a pivotal year in South African politics as we go to the local government elections, that you keep chopping and changing your Chief Whips. I mean, we're now hearing and it's hard to keep up. So first of all, the optics of it. There was Desmond van Rooyen from Carltonville, I think his from Carltonville, became known as the Weekend Special because he was sworn in as the Minister of Finance and then removed a few days later. We remember what that did to the Rand. We remember what that did to Zuma's government’s standing amongst investors. So the optics of midnight maneuvers by former President Zuma. There's a record of them not going well, certainly when it involves the name Desmond van Rooyen. So here we first learned that, and I hope I've got this right, that Colleen Makhubele was removed and Desmond van Rooyen replaced her. Wayne Sussman (06:41.407)And now we learn a few hours later that there are rumors that John Hlope, a very senior person, obviously with experience as a judge, has not only been fired, before he was fired, he's quit the party. So this is a significant person in the party. And the chaos ensues. And when we look at the by-election results, it kind of makes sense to me that if you're not going to run a steady ship, if your members of Parliament and your members of Provincial Legislature and those few ward councillors and one or two PR councillors are saying, seeing absolute chaos on a national level, what kind of confidence and hope are you going to have that the party will run a steady ship into this election? Chris Steyn (07:29.872)Okay, let's go to last night's by-election results when at least the ANC did cling on. Wayne Sussman (07:41.676)Yeah, so there only two seats. Let's start with the one about where the ANC clung on. Govan Mbeki municipality, this is around the Secunda area, the Highveld Ridge of Mpumalanga. And there was a by-election in the Embalenhle township just outside Secunda. And again, this is a 100% township ward. There's no...It's part of the suburb included here. And essentially the ANC held on. This was always going to be tough because a high profile ward councillor quitting the party, quite public, he's well known in the area. And he thought that the ANC might actually lose the seat, but the ANC clung on. They won 44% of the vote, down a few percentage points. In second place. So by the way, the ANC would be delighted that they clung onto the seat. But in second place was the Democratic Alliance, which I think is a significant result for the party. They grew from 17% to 27%. They're well out in second place. And essentially, what this means is the DA also - there only three voting districts in this ward - the DA won one of the voting districts, is that we are now seeing a pattern of results around the Witbank Secunda area of the DA doing well in by-elections. They won a award recently in the small town of Ga-Nala, formerly known as Kriel, quite a more diverse seat. Here they've got over 27% in an Mpumalanga township seat. The DA will be very satisfied. The EFF were in third place, essentially doing what they did the last time. Now, even though this was the first time uMkhonto we Sizwe contested this award in a by-election, if we look back at what they did here in 2024, they gave the ANC a major fright. In 2024, that's about 17 months ago, they got 30%, almost a third of the vote in this township seat..Read more:.The Electoral Road Show with Wayne Sussman: ANC wobbling, DA improving, PA climbing fast.Wayne Sussman (09:53.366)What happened in this by-election? They came a distant fourth with only 10%. That is a poor result from uMkhonto we Sizwe. It's a poor result in a province where they are the official opposition. So that is what happened in Mpumalanga. And then we move over to Fetakgomo Tubatse, where there was a by-election in a rural part of this, just to remind people watching and listening, this is the Chrome Belt of Limpopo, one of those places you might say, what is he talking about? Well, this is actually the third most populous part of Limpopo, places like Burgersfort, Steelpoort, et cetera. So here the ANC's vote share grew from 57% to 71%. This is a continuation of us seeing the ANC in Limpopo do exceedingly well. And they will know that going into an election year, there is a strong pattern of results of the ANC continuing to win. And as President Donald Trump would say, win big. And they won big in Limpopo last night. So the EFF came second here, Chris, but they actually lost more than half of their support in the ward. They fell from 28 % to 13%. That is a very disappointing result for the EFF. And we know that the EFF's roots and origin story are in the Limpopo province. A lot of work for them to do there. Now, who came third? And I'm glad that I'm a geek and I'm glad that I prepare hard when I look at by-elections. The person who came third was an independent candidate. And why is this significant that in a small village in Limpopo, we're talking about an independent candidate who came third? There's a new party formed this year. Wayne Sussman (11:47.47)I spoke earlier about John Hlope seemingly resigning for quitting MK, well, another high profile person quit MK, and that was Floyd Shivambo. Now, the independent candidate who came third with 6% of the vote is a member and an activist of the African Mayibuye Movement. Wayne Sussman (12:11.797)Now that is, look, it's only 6 % of the vote. But if I'm Floyd Shivambo, it’s not a bad start to your political career. Again, the candidate stood as an independent. And here we see this independent coming third. Now what is interesting is that two small local parties came fourth and fifth. Who came sixth and who came seventh? In sixth place. And again we look at the datam the South African Communist Party with 1% of the vote. They keep on contesting Limpopo by elections and they keep on falling horribly short. And here is another example. And if I'm the ANC in Polokwane today…, I'm laughing at this. Here is this breakaway threatening us saying they're so powerful, such a critical part of the Tripartite Alliance, but election after election after election, all what they get is 1% to the vote. It could have been worse for the SACP. They didn't finish last, they finished second last. The party which finished last in this Limpopo by-election was a party which has tremendous leadership squbbles right now, uMkhonto we Sizwe only getting 1% to the vote. So this, in conclusion, was a horrible night for uMkhonto we Sizwe. Not only did they lose, seemingly, John Hlope, they were underperformed in Govan Mbeki and in Mpumalanga. They were underperformed in Fetakgomo Tubatse in Limpopo. So a good night for the ANC. They retained a tough competitive seat in Mpumalanga. They did brilliantly in Limpopo. This is a continuation of what we see week after week in Limpopo. The DA will look at that result in Govan Mbeki and say, if we can do this in a township in Secunda, and often with respect to Secunda, it's often more… Wayne Sussman (14:17.955)…like Ekurhuleni than in Mpumalanga proper so they all hope that they can continue to grow there. A mixed bag for the EFF: disappointment in Limpopo, staying steady in Mpumalanga- and that is the way I would analyse last night's by-elections. Chris Steyn (14:38.906)Thank you, Wayne. Now the IEC, the Independent Electoral Commission, is targeting next November for critical elections. So we've got a year to go, if they can pull it off. Wayne Sussman (14:50.151)Left, wow, it's already November. This year he's flying fast. Yeah, so... Wayne Sussman (14:58.541)I recently had an engagement to the IEC. One of the things we spoke about is the concept of a free and fair election. And just to remind people that the latest, absolute latest the election can be is, I think it's the last Wednesday of January, is 2027, which is the 28th or the 27th. I can't remember exactly. But I don't think that is a fair date because we know that a lot of people’s January is a life, is a start of a transition. People moving to new tertiary education institutions, people moving to relocating for job opportunities. There's a lot of flux in late January. So November's a better date. And the one thing about November is again for tertiary institutions, the exams are still taking place. World exams still to be taking place. If the exams are over, have students have moved out of residences and moved home. So I just, again, it matters a lot to me, the freedom and the fairness of election, but I think early November is better than late January. But the one thing I want to remind you is that this is a decision which ostensibly gets made by the President in consultation with the IEC and the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs who for the first time in our history, well not the first time in our history, but in the first time in many years, the person who is the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs is not from the ANC. So this will be an interesting deliberation. But it's more the President's prerogative of when he wants the election and seeing whether the IEC and the Minister of Cooperative Governance can work within that timeline. But now we have a date. What's also important is, Aand Chris, I hope you'll still call me after this, by-elections will cease on the 30th of April, 2026 until the election. So you are going to, as I said at the start, see a flurry of defections. It's going to be silly season. But now we have these dates. The IEC is intimating about the early November, but let's hear what the President says. But we know no by-elections after the 30th of April. Chris Steyn (17:06.864)But I'm sure that there will be so much political maneuvering in the run-up to those elections that you and I will have plenty to talk about, Wayne, especially with your acute insight. OK. Wayne Sussman (17:22.721)Well, I'm glad you'll have me back. Thank you. But I'll work on my pronunciation next time as well. OK. Thanks. Chris Steyn (17:32.334)Mine too. I sometimes skip a name because I know I'm going to be, you know, massacring it. That was Elections Analyst Wayne Sussman on the Electoral Road Ahow with me, Chris Steyn. Thank you, Wayne.

Defections, domination, dates - and Des van Rooyen: The Electoral Road Show with Wayne Sussman

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