John Matisonn: SACP hands DA its first township win

Key topics:SACP votes swung Emfuleni ward, giving DA narrow win over ANC.DA faces criticism over Steenhuisen FMD ruling and internal rifts/FF+Left parties form Council of the Left as ANC alliance weakens..By John Matisonn.Amid the blaze of DA self-congratulation at its genuinely historic first victory in an all-township ward in the by-election in Emfuleni last week, few seemed to notice the crucial factor that took the DA over the top -- the South African Communist Party.The DA won this ward by only eight votes – by 1,001 to 993. Its victory, as elections guru Wayne Sussman meticulously pointed out, was due to overwhelming support at one polling station dominated by the Water in the Wilderness Ministries.But, in this first-time SACP contested seat, the SACP took 89 votes – ten times the DA’s margin of victory. It is safe to assume almost all SACP votes came from the ANC. Until now, all SACP members were instructed to vote ANC. .Read more:.False dawn or new era: Data behind the DA’s historic Emfuleni township victory.If only a handful of the SACP‘s 89 voters had stayed with the ANC, it would have kept the ward. The SACP handed the DA this victory, its first ANC scalp in its likely doomed quest to strike out on its own. With only 2.85% of the by-election vote, the SACP provided the crucial difference to swing the seat from the ANC to the DA. The Emfuleni by-election seems to mark another milestone on the SACP’s road to irrelevance, just as the ANC seems unable to step out of its own downward spiral long enough to chart a truly different path to save itself.For the DA, fresh off its clockwork efficient congress that heralded a new generation of leaders laden with post-graduate degrees appropriate to professionalising government, this victory may seem like another sign along its march to greater power in local and later national government.But at the same time there are signs of danger ahead in rising criticism from its traditional supporters that started over the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among the country’s cattle. Farmers and farming organisations complained that DA Agriculture Minister and former DA leader John Steenhuisen implemented typical ANC policy by barring farmers from vaccinating the cattle themselves.Last week Judge JC van der Westhuizen delivered a scathing interim judgement, taking the side of farming organisations that said the Minister had no legal right to confine vaccination to state entities, and awarded costs against Steenhuisen.Criticism of Steenhuisen and Hill-Lewis has spread to DA-friendly business consultant Dr Frans Cronje, a long-time associate of DA leaders and head of The Common Sense website: DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis “should have fired him on day one.”The Common Sense followed up on Monday with an editorial attacking Hill-Lewis himself, for picking what he considered an unseemly fight with Freedom Front plus’s Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald for actions that occurred before Groenewald was in government.The editorial alleged Hill-Lewis started the spat to deflect attention from the criticism Steenhuisen received over FMD, to create the impression that 30,000 parolees had absconded from prisons on Groenewald’s watch, but that the data used was from 1991.In his commentary, Cronje also said that the DA should not be attacking FF+ leaders in the GNU, because the two parties were essentially on the same side in opposing government encroachment on the private sector.This rift between erstwhile allies seems to be part of a larger shift in the tectonic plates of our politics in the wake of the ANC’s continuing decline. .Read more:.TCS Editorial: Can the DA overtake the ANC and win national power?.A three-day conference of left-wing parties that included the SACP, the Economic Freedom Fighters, Mkhonto weSize, the Pan Africanist Congress and the Azanian Peoples’ Organisation, concluded with a decision to establish Council of the Left, a coordinating structure to drive campaigns and programmes agreed to during the conference.While it is not intended to form a single political party, it does suggest the ANC’s decades-old tripartite alliance is en route to extinction.The council is expected to hold its first meeting within six weeks..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 every morning on 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.

John Matisonn: SACP hands DA its first township win

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