Malema headed for Parliament with nine cohorts as ANC tipped to lose ground in 2014 Election
This was one of the more depressing interviews of a difficult news week. Frans Cronje of the Institute of Race Relations spends his life researching the socio-political environment. He shared his conclusions that the well named Economic Freedom Fighters (who fight economic freedom) are likely to establish a toehold in Parliament next year with around 3% of the vote – about the same as the rational Mamphela Ramphele's Agang. The definition of a developing country is a place where the Political Agenda supercedes the Economic one. SA falls into that category. Although we prefer focusing Biznewz.com content on business matters, Cronje's interview has wide economic implications. Thankfully, for regular updates on the political scene, we are able to rely on James Myburgh's superb Politicsweb. – AH
ALEC HOGG: Politics is very much in the news at the moment with Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters – not – and Mamphela Ramphele who is launching her party as well. On top of that, we have the Black Economic Empowerment Codes that have just been released. All of those issues – politically instigated in some way or the other. Frans Cronje is the Deputy Chief Executive of the Institute for IRR – Institute of Race Relations.
FRANS CRONJE: Correct.
ALEC HOGG: It's good to have you here, Frans. Let's kick off with the thing in the news right now – the new BEE Codes. Have you had a chance to analyse them properly?
FRANS CRONJE: We've had a look. All of these things always go back to the context. What are we trying to achieve as a country? Is it working? A lot of the feedback we get from our consulting client base, which is now very large in South Africa, is a business community that's increasingly fed up with the idea that goals are being shifted and being moved and that their views aren't being taken seriously. While it doesn't come through in public as often as I think it should, certainly the sentiment we pick up is that this is complicating the business and investment environment. It's not what the South African business community needs.
ALEC HOGG: We had some really good discussions on that on this program yesterday and like you, I've been scratching my head wondering why nobody's been talking for a long time. It almost seems that there could be a new spirit kicked off, perhaps, by Simon Susman – last week with his Woolworths annual report.
FRANS CRONJE: Well, there's been Simon Susman recently. There's been BMW's boss Bodo Donauer, coming out very aggressively and saying, "This isn't an environment that we can do business in". The context for businessmen to come out and say there's a problem has never been better than it is today. The growth levels – two percent – just over two percent this year, a budget deficit that's unsustainable if inflation sticks its head well above the target zone. We're going to see the real incomes of poor households fall quite quickly. A government perhaps, for the first time, is under the economic pressure where if you are in business and you start to raise these arguments, you're going to be taken seriously. The very fact that we are facing one of the most difficult growth climates that we have as a country for many years means it's precisely the moment. Business leaders can say, "If you want us to make a serious contribution, if you want the investment that drives the growth and the job creation, take us seriously now on policy. We need to be competitive. We need to compete with other regions in the world and policy that's coming out of the cabinet and out of government has made that difficult for us in recent years".
ALEC HOGG: The political landscape is changing as well. The DA expecting to get a lot more seats in parliament after the next election and of course we have the red berets?
FRANS CRONJE: Huge shifts/changes – if we're forced into a forecast, which I think is the responsibility of people who do this sort of thing. When we look at next year's election, we see the DA picking up from its current 17 percent to 23/24 percent of the national vote. The ANC is down from 65.9 to around 62/63 percent. The smaller parties – sometimes called the rats and mice parties – pick up 2 to 3 percentage points each. We'd be quite comfortable with seeing the EFF with 3 percentage points – that means almost ten members of parliament. You can imagine the world media – the frenzy that will be created when Julius Malema stands up to give his answer to the State of the Nation Address. Agang is new on the scene. If it starts to campaign, which it doesn't seem to be doing, and provides some clarity on what it stands for – give it two or three percentage points. Freedom Front: down to one MP, we think. Some of the rest also down – Inkatha – we're probably seeing what's very close to the end of that party. The environment is changing must faster though, than the results the forecasts suggest. Coming into the 2019 election, we expect that on current trends if it doesn't reform, we can see an ANC knockdown into the high 50 percentile setting up a 50/50 race between the ANC and the DA Coalition running into the 2024 election. Young voters are made out to be a very big issue. They're actually irrelevant, coming into next year's election. Only one percent of registered voters, next year, we expect to be from the born-free generation born post-1994.
ALEC HOGG: Why is it that the young voters are not coming to the polls?
FRANS CRONJE: There are not many of them in terms of numbers, and the ones that are there, aren't registering to vote. We don't know why that is. It is something that concerns the IEC. What it means though, is that for next year's election, the same electorate that made decisions that gave us the last two or three governments, are still the electorate that are going to make decisions. That is why we don't yet see – for 2014 – the huge shifts that have been forecast by some others. Nomura Consulting: you might have seen on a spread admittedly, pushed the ANC down on the low end of that spread, as 56 percent. We think that's premature. A risk in next year's result though, is if the ANC is only knocked down to 63 percent, it breeds a complacency that will come from the fact that people say, "There's so much hype around this election. The ANC was going to get knocked down". In fact, what happened? It's still where it's always been. They're going to get a big surprise running into 2019 when the young voters, if they register in numbers, will have the ability to sway party outcomes for a particular party by ten or so percentage points. That's a completely new environment. Think in this regard, in terms of our first five elections running up to 2014 of having been the old style elections decided by the old style electorate. From 2019 onwards, we have a much younger voter. We have a new, very radical movement on the scene in the EFF. It's a different world with different results. South Africa can change very quickly in the decade ahead.
ALEC HOGG: These are fascinating insights, thank you, Frans Cronje. As you say, it's going to be interesting to see Julius Malema in parliament. That's a certainty. He, as President, could take a bit longer.
FRANS CRONJE: The question for Malema: is it going to be prison or is it going to be parliament? That's the only way to stop…
ALEC HOGG: That was the same question for our current President, wasn't it?
FRANS CRONJE: The same question and he ended up on the right side – for him – of that equation. I think Malema ends up on the right side of that equation. When you start doing the scenarios around this, the one very interesting outcome is 'Malema, the kingmaker'. What happens? We don't think it will happen in Gauteng, but what happens if the ANC doesn't get a complete majority? Malema's in a position to become a kingmaker, to push the ANC above 50 percent in the province. In decades to come, years to come, elections to come in the rest of the country…that means he's back in the ANC, in effect. He has great influence over the party and does the ANC try to lurch left to take account of this very new, very worrying at times, but also very important political dynamic in the country? The first political leader who is telling the truth about the circumstances of young people in the country and is promising them that he has a solution that no one else is selling.