Why the DA lost votes, even in the Western Cape

Although none of South Africa’s biggest three parties achieved their projected goals in Wednesday’s elections, at least three things have become crystal clear: The ANC has suffered, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is growing and the Democratic Alliance (DA) is floating somewhere in the middle.

The ANC’s performance in Gauteng hovered around the 50% mark late last night, with political commentator Leeto Nthoba predicting that its fate could swing either way.

This, Nthoba believed, could have serious implications, given the trouble political parties have been having in marrying differing ideologies in the case of political horse-trading.

“The problem is if the ANC does not get 50% and above, none of the other parties have an appetite for a coalition any more,” said Nthoba. “The EFF particularly took hits because of what they did in the coalition. The people who go for the EFF are the hardliners, the people who want their view and nothing else.”

He believed that the DA’s loss of voters to the Freedom Front Plus would also have an impact on the decisions they made going forward, namely who they choose to work with.

On the other hand, Nthoba said the resurgence of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in KwaZulu-Natal, along with the success of smaller parties, will provide a good case study for what he terms “black politics”.

“KwaZulu-Natal is a good case study for what black politics is going to look like in the near future. People are going to start to make new homes outside of the ANC.”

According to Nthoba, the DA’s internal battles were discouraging voters and this could be seen in the outcome of the Western Cape provincial race.

“The Western Cape has become a big conundrum for all of the parties,” he said.

“Remember, the Institute for Race Relations had predicted the DA was going to lose the Western Cape. The DA’s own internal polling had shown that they were going to lose the Western Cape and that the ANC would regain it, yet when everything comes out you get this weird puzzle; that people inside the Western Cape, for the provincial elections, have voted for the DA, but have split their ballot and voted for the ANC nationally.”

He believed this showed that the DA supporters voted according to their faith in individual party leaders, implying support for Alan Winde but not Mmusi Maimane.

Political analyst Daniel Silke said: “The victory from the DA was relatively impressive, given where the party was over the past year or so with the leadership issues in the Western Cape, leading with the Patricia de Lille saga and related issues in Cape Town.”

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.