It’s been a week to remind us that while the polls all seem to point to a defeat of sorts for President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC in the 2024 elections, seven days is still a long time in politics and there are roughly 100 weeks before we vote again.
That’s 100 weeks in which a DA leader could do himself and his party more damage than calling his ex-wife “roadkill” in public will have done this week; 100 weeks for the DA mayor of Tshwane to do more damage than he already has trying to instruct municipal officials to approve a multibillion-rand contract without a tender; 100 weeks for ActionSA to prove itself an even more faithless coalition partner.
ActionSA’s penchant for ruffling DA feathers in the coalitions they jointly occupy may provide for amusement.
But if coalitions are to be successfully touted as alternatives to the ANC for the next 100 weeks, then politicians will excuse us voters for watching how they actually get on. The country needs, but will struggle to get, a clearly defined and viable substitute to the ANC, not a bickering, point-scoring, schoolyard melee.
And that’s the thing. It is hard to imagine the ANC doing any worse than it already is, though the economy will continue to decline.
But while it does, and assuming Ramaphosa wins re-election as ANC leader in December (which he will, even if Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma runs again, because the party knows that without him it really loses), the party and its leader have 100 weeks to do just a little bit better.
Assume the ANC is on about 45%-46%; even without the distorting effect of the probable introduction of independent candidates in 2024 (which might give the ANC a parliamentary majority with less than half the vote), all it has to do is improve by five percentage points and it’s home.
A hundred weeks is a lifetime in politics and what people are instinctively going to watch for is not the rate of inflation or unemployment or even the petrol price. They’ll be looking for leadership.
Songezo Zibi, when he finally launches his party, will be outstanding, but his 2024 numbers will be tiny. Ramaphosa is still the one to beat.
He is accomplished, worldly, thoughtful and charming, and he has a clear idea of the reforms he wants to introduce — from bringing more private capital into parts of the economy operated by the state, to a broad commitment to nonalignment in foreign policy.
The EFF, largely by positioning itself as the resident iconoclast of our current politics, now finds itself resting on a featherbed of low expectations
Obviously, his weaknesses are famous. He is slow to act and too tolerant of corruption in his party. Politically feeble, he has no natural constituency in the ANC and the black middle class is maybe looking for a new home.
At the DA, John Steenhuisen faces a stiff test. A fabulous chief whip in parliament where his aggressive gifts were almost perfectly calibrated to the job at hand, he doesn’t yet answer all the questions of a national leader, a statesman. Calling his ex-wife “roadkill” was reckless in the extreme and he will know that.
He doesn’t have former DA leader Tony Leon’s eloquence or Helen Zille’s authority. More likely than not, Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis will lead the DA into the 2029 election. In the meantime, however, Steenhuisen still needs a makeover.
At ActionSA, yet to fight a general election, its blustering leader, former DA mayor of Johannesburg Herman Mashaba, looms large but is somehow unconvincing. He did little to turn Johannesburg around during his time in office. I lived there and I know.
Mashaba is nonetheless likely to do relatively well in 2024, mainly (but not exclusively) at the DA’s expense. He has built political traction around illegal immigration, but so has the ANC.
He is a fractious coalition partner and his fondness for the far-left EFF is well known. But the way the DA and ActionSA get on with each other is going to become critical.
They are a broken marriage. The same could be said of the ANC and the EFF. But there is hardly any pressure in the next 100 weeks on the EFF, which, has come to rest at a comfortable 11% of the vote and has its bum nicely in the butter.
The biggest job is going to be for Steenhuisen and Mashaba to somehow find each other in the next 100 weeks.
Spoiler alert: This is not going to be a pretty dance but if they can to do it, and convince the rest of us they mean it, July 2024 might yet be worth hanging around for.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.