Stiff challenge: ‘Campaigns will get nasty

In what is expected to be the stiffest election challenge faced by the ANC since 1994, opposition parties will mount nasty campaigns based on the 30-year review of South Africa’s democracy, say political experts.

They will include the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the newly launched uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party – and they will exploit glaring weaknesses in government.

Opposition will do little to highlight the positives of the ANC

With several challenges facing the ANC before the watershed polls, public policy expert Dr Nkosikhulile Nyembezi said the opposition parties’ campaign “will probably do little to highlight the positives of the ANC’s incumbency record, but will nonetheless make political discourse even more unpleasant”.

“How ironic to see in this election year that our zombie government is absent at best and ghoulish at worst.

“It has become reduced almost entirely to a single policy – a fixation on keeping the governing party from implosion and disintegration, threatening to erode its electoral support significantly.

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“This further brings the party and the government into conflict with citizens in its effort to ram through unworkable socio-economic growth schemes that are expensive, impractical and unlawful,” said Nyembezi.

“Most of the offerings by opposition parties with sizeable followings, including the MK party that is yet to announce its policies and election promises, is a constant dimming of the lights to prepare us for the fact that not much that is material to people’s everyday lives can change in the short term after these elections.

“The inherited mess is too vast to clean up overnight. There is an echo of protest against the ANC government’s failures and the refusal of political leaders to prioritise public interest over personal greed.

“Organised with little ambition that things will change, the dedication of hundreds of thousands of people to the anti-establishment cause – characterised by less reliance on the government – is an insistence on reality that leaders will not acknowledge.

“The vast number of the electorate will continue to check out when a large gap opens up between what politicians say and what people see,” he said.

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“Still, many others will opt in either by staying away from the polls or voting in large numbers for opposition parties to unseat the governing ANC.”

Biggest threats to the ANC

Political economy analyst Daniel Silke said the biggest threats to the ANC included the broader economic decline in SA affecting ordinary people, the rising cost of living, difficulties in finding jobs, a rise in property prices “and the fact that there has not been a better life after successive polls”.

“The abject failure of so many aspects of the state relating to power failures, logistics and the transport system are staring people in the face,” he said.

“Corruption and poor policy application by government adds to the challenges.

“They illustrate a decline in political leadership showing President Cyril Ramaphosa to be at his weakest position.

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“There is an increasing lack of lack of leadership showing that Ramaphosa is not commanding respect that the presidency once commanded before.”

ANC’s sleepless nights

Silke said the ANC’s doubts about getting 50% of the votes in the polls was giving it sleepless nights.

“Faced with a prospect of not having full control of your government and being unsure of whether you will require coalition partners to govern – from a party of liberation to an ANC that can barely muster 50% of the vote – is indicative of a broad failure.

“That should be enough to give the governing party sleepless nights – opening the door for opposition parties to come together and form a coalition.”

University of South Africa political science professor Dirk Kotze said load shedding, poor service delivery, corruption and the decline in infrastructure would be exploited by opposition parties.

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