SA is in a deep crisis, and voters could stay away – experts

With 37% unemployment, 17 million people on social grants, the cost of electricity going up yesterday, fuel going up tonight at midnight, and the consumer price index and inflation edging upwards, South Africa is in a governance crisis with 37 days to elections.

“The crisis represents the cumulative effects of bad policy making and corruption over the course of the last decade, and if you cumulatively add up each of the previous years’ non-performance, then you will clearly move into a crisis situation,” political analyst Daniel Silke said yesterday.

Add to this the furore around ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule’s alleged corruption and the (lack of) response by the ANC and Magashule, the reprieve/vacuum by Moody’s on our sovereign credit rating keeping our heads above water until the next one in November, and Andile Ramaphosa’s R2 million Bosasa tangle – plus Bosasa’s R500 000 “donation” to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign fund.

Silke said this clearly wasn’t the election campaign Ramaphosa would have hoped for.

“There’s been damaging reports for Ramaphosa virtually on a week-by-week basis since the beginning of the campaign and I think it will have an effect if it persists,” said Silke.

Then of course, there were the very recent rolling blackouts due to decades of incompetence and failure to do maintenance at Eskom plants due to poor management decisions.

“The controversies swirling around the issues of Eskom, if the lights go out again, the issues of ANC candidate lists, further graft and corruption allegations, and if these persist for the next few weeks it certainly can have an effect on eroding two sectors of ANC support, one of which would be voters who were less locked in to the ANC.”

Silke said one could expect a higher proportion of undecided voters to potentially stay away from the polls, with some trickling through to opposition parties.

“The second problem for the ANC is the Ramaphosa factor, which I think was in the ANC’s favour among DA supporters, is being heavily eroded as we move towards the elections,” Silke said.

If this carried on, Silke said, it was likely the ANC would be looking at mid-50% numbers when the dust settled around the elections.

The recent Q1 retail survey by Stellenbosch University’s Bureau for Economic Research found business confidence among retailers had retreated from some recovery in the final quarter of 2018.

“Current activity levels remain subdued, while the numerous headwinds facing the consumer makes a meaningful recovery unlikely,” the report stated.

It’s going to be a bumpy ride, especially with more undecided voters than previous elections across all the major demographic groups, according to political analyst Dawie Scholtz.

“The other thing which is interesting is that we obviously in the past had close elections in the Western Cape and I think for the first time ever we’re going to have a close election in a second province, namely Gauteng.”

Scholtz thought there was a “very serious” chance the ANC could come in under 50% in Gauteng.

“This will be more of a competitive election than we’ve had in the past. There was a massive drop in black voters for the ANC between 2011 and 2016, and I think the critical question is to what extent Ramaphosa will be able to win back those voters,” Scholtz said.

“If you look at the elections simulations, the ANC needs more than 70% of the black vote in Gauteng in order to get its 50% plus. If the trend continues and it comes in at under 70% it’s likely the ANC will be under 50% in Gauteng.”

How badly people were affected by load shedding, and the level of load shedding in the next for weeks, could have electoral impact, explained Scholtz.

“It also depends on how the big the current Bosasa scandal grows.”

Voter turnout was going to be vital, he noted.

“We saw the result in 2016 when the DA took over in Johannesburg and Tshwane. The fact that DA voters turned out disproportionately and I think that’s a critical variable for the upcoming elections,” Scholtz said.

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