The future of Gauteng’s political landscape may hinge on a new centrist party that bridges urban and township divides. Political scientist Seán McLaughlin outlines how a South Africa Party (SAP) could rise by uniting small, personality-driven parties and targeting untapped voter bases. With lessons from 2024’s fragmented centrist attempts, SAP could reshape Gauteng politics, challenge the ANC’s dominance, and provide the DA with a powerful coalition partner for urban renewal.
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.
The seventh BizNews Conference, BNC#7, is to be held in Hermanus from March 11 to 13, 2025. The 2025 BizNews Conference is designed to provide an excellent opportunity for members of the BizNews community to interact directly with the keynote speakers, old (and new) friends from previous BNC events – and to interact with members of the BizNews team. Register for BNC#7 here.
By Seán McLaughlin*
The prospect is real that a new centrist party with critical mass arises in Gauteng in the coming years.
That could break the deadlock in the city councils and the provincial government where the centrists lack the numbers.
Numerically, the African National Congress (ANC) could form a provincial coalition with the Democratic Alliance (DA). However, the ANC leadership specific to Gauteng in Mr Panyaza Lesufi and others, is inclined to side with the far left.
Leading into the 2024 National and Provincial Elections (NPE), the argument never held that if the ANC fell to 40%, a tie up with its broader allies was still an aggregate 70%. The national ANC preferred a deal with the DA and not its far-left breakaway adversaries.
This argument does however apply in the Gauteng province – the only one of the three ‘big’ provinces in which voters could not elect a centrist majority and break the ANC’s hold.
Voters re-elected the DA with a majority in the Western Cape province.
In the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province, voters elected a centrist coalition of four parties (IFP, DA, ANC, NFP). The presence of the centre-right Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) allowed a centrist coalition to form and deny the province to the ANC breakaway uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK, 45.35%).
If the Battle for South Africa unfolded in KZN with a split to the left, it could enter its final stage with a split to the centre in Gauteng.
That may make or break SA’s key political players. If the ANC fails to regain the urban vote, it will fade away. For the DA, it needs a visible urban turnaround outside of the Western Cape.
Upstarts
Love or loathe the DA, new political upstarts virtually always dwindle. One senses this is finally landing with voters.
2024 dashed the high hopes for the energetic, modernistic upstarts of Rise Mzansi (0.42%), BOSA (Build One South Africa – 0.41%) and ASA (Action South Africa 1.20%).
Frans Cronje, a political analyst, presciently commented on ASA in 2020 that he did not think Herman Mashaba (ASA) would make it, but that he would, “leave the sample on the battlefield”.
ASA had many of the ingredients, including a sensible alternative to race-based policies of a fund for black entrepreneurs.
But Mr Mashaba lacked seriousness. Regretfully, ASA did not fulfil its potential.
Election disappointment morphed into resentment and reneging on its commitment never to work with the ANC. The party now seems to be collapsing.
Someone else may find the sample and have another go.
Holding such promise, some of these three above-mentioned parties have served only to take their few votes to prop up the damaging Lesufi-backed administrations, in the provincial government, or in the councils.
And they all grew out of Gauteng. They tapped into the townships, the black middle class and the DA’s suburbia. The DA, then, did well to hold its 27.44% in the province in 2024.
But they were all built around personalities.
A province-focused tie up of these parties would be formidable – let us call it the ‘South Africa Party (SAP)’. That would be compelling to the non-voters, the unregistered, or those unwilling to vote for either the ANC or the DA.
To be successful, it would need to learn from the mistakes of its forebearers:
- It must not be personality reliant. Its appeal is from the breadth of leadership, many of whom would have strong ties to target voter communities.
- It would require independent processes for electing leaders and dispute resolution.
- It would require campaign structures on-the-ground and target a specific urban market:
- Campaigning in the ‘DA’s suburbs’ risks only repeating the past mistakes of fragmenting the centrist vote. It should target the townships and ‘Middle Zones’ (township-suburb hinterlands), informal settlements and CBDs where the latent centrist market lies:
- According to the Social Research Foundation (SRF), a think tank, in the election of 2024, 32% of ASA’s vote came from townships and 37% from suburbs.
- It could be marketed as ‘what-the-ANC-should-be-in-Gauteng’, given the Gauteng ANC does not reflect the national ANC. It may include ANC members unhappy with Lesufi’s leadership.
- It should espouse a pro-market manifesto whilst maintaining welfare benefits, which appeals to a majority of SA voters.
- It should concentrate resources where it can win, focusing on a handful of municipalities and wards at Local Government Elections (LGEs).
- It should leverage a diverse funding base in SA’s deep philanthropic community.
A failure to meet these requirements will likely lead to a failure of the entrant, and Gauteng would be no further down the road, as the arithmetic would not change.
The numbers
Gauteng Provincial Election 2019
Gauteng Provincial Election 2024
Gauteng Provincial Election 2029 (Hypothetical)
How the centre right could gain a majority in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature. Data is hypothetical and prepared by the author using parliamentdiagram
The last, a possible 2029 scenario, assumes:
- The emergence of the SAP as a new, centre-right, Gauteng-focused party.
- It attains a realistic 17.50% of the vote in the province.
- It amalgamates the small, personality-driven parties of 2024.
- It eats into the ANC 2024 voter base significantly (around 12% / 10 seats)
- It does not eat into the DA voter base
- The DA vote increases to 30% / 24 seats from 2024
- The far-left vote remains the same from 2024
- With 41 seats needed for an outright majority, the SAP (14 seats) could team up with the DA (24 seats), and two smaller parties further to the right (3 seats) to form a majority
- This scenario does not account for the South African Communist Party (SACP) standing independently of the ANC.
Such a scenario would not likely unfold as neatly.
Yet it would still be a win for the DA if the SAP took some of the DA’s voters (say DA – 25%, SAP – 20%). That could give the DA a reliable partner with which to finally govern the capital province.
And threshold legislation may force party tie-ups in any case.
Rise Mzansi leader Songezo Zibi was in talks with BOSA leader Mmusi Maimane in August 2024. Studies prove such get-togethers have a multiplier effect, with the collective attaining more than any of the parties would have achieved independently. There is a tangible feeling that these novices will have to do things differently going forward. 2024 was the apprenticeship.
That there were serious attempts at new leadership in 2024, all centrist-leaning, was encouraging.
The business plans have already been written, markets tested, and the mistakes have been made for someone else to avoid next time.
Read also:
- The fall and potential rise of the Joburg CBD: Mukundi Budeli
- Joburg’s water crisis deepens as delays to Lesotho Highlands Project surge
- 30 years of ANC misrule in Gauteng, but the DA has a game plan…
*Seán McLaughlin is an independent Political Scientist and Data Analyst. He can be reached on X and LinkedIn.
Previously, he has worked for data and news providers Wood Mackenzie and Acuris. He holds a degree in Arabic and International Relations from the University of St Andrews, as well as a degree in Data Science for Business, from the University of Stirling.
