Key topics:
- DA rises to 25% in polls, bolstered by blocking ANC’s VAT increase.
- ANC struggles with internal conflicts, dropping to 32% support.
- MKP and EFF face instability, raising questions about future alliances.
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.
By John Matisonn ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
What a difference nine months makes.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) emerged from the May 2024 election only one percent stronger than in the previous election, at 21.81%. But its strategy – to consolidate its support base and block other small parties from gaining a foothold – now seems to have paid off.
The latest poll from the Social Research Foundation (SRF) shows it has succeeded in avoiding the trap of smaller partners in coalitions, of being wiped out by association with a coalition government, sitting at 25% in the most recent opinion poll.
Then it achieved its most successful maneuver yet, getting most of the credit for blocking the two percent VAT increase imposed on it by the “pro-poor” African National Congress (ANC).
This is almost certain to give it another boost.
While the DA is growing, its big brother GNU partner, the ANC, seems unable to move decisively from its tail-chasing internecine conflicts, especially in the two key provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, where its election results were spectacularly bad. The same SRF poll found only 32% of likely voters are still for the ANC. A record 15% are now undecided.
Nine months after the election, the ANC has fiunally reorganized the two provincial party organisations and replaced many of the chairs of the national executive committee’s sub-committees.
But many ANC members see these changes primarily as factional moves to advantage ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula and his allies ahead of the 2007 leadership election to replace President Cyril Ramaphosa. The new Gauteng structure has 68 members. Few commentators see sparks of new energy coming from such an unwieldy body of recycled leaders, many of whom have been in senior positions before.
The result is that, although the DA is still the second biggest party, and a question mark hangs over whether party leader John Steenhuisen plans to continue as leader, on current form it will enter the coming local and national elections as a potential stabilizing anchor to the next government.
Everything will hinge on whether the new ANC president elected in 2027 will want to stick with the DA or make overtures to the MKP and EFF. The EFF has not emerged from the body blows caused first by the MKP’s exceptional first-time performance in the election and the loss of some of its leading figures to that party.
The MKP’s sparkling first-time success has been followed by continuing mayhem as the sphynx of Nkandla, party leader Jacob Zuma, hires and fires party office-bearers with impunity while his power is unchallenged in the absence of a party congress to elect other leaders.
Current favourites appear to be Deputy President Paul Mashatile and Mbalula, though some prefer either International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola or Police Minister Senzo Mchunu.
Meanwhile there re few signs Gauteng’s dysfunctional cities and provincial government will improve, after the ANC leadership’s attempt to dislodge Gauteng Premier Panyazi Lesufi to kickstart reform failed. Lesufi remains in the ANC provincial leadership.
Provincial party congresses are due towards the end of this year.
Read also:
