South African General Election, 2019

[StateBoiler]

[StateBoiler]

Rugby board I'm on which has a good bit of South Africans, they're mostly DA supporters in the past, and a good number are disillusioned with where DA have went policy-wise.

http://forum.planetrugby.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=88680

I’m not convinced that the DA bleeding support to the FF+ is a bad thing.

One thing that has hamstrung the DA’s election efforts over the last 10-15 years has been that many of the NP and NNP nationalist voters came over the DA. This gave the ANC and EFF a cudgel to beat them with.

One of the better out outcomes would be for more white, conservative and right-leaning voters to find a permanent home in the FF+ and then the DA might become more appealing to black voters. Eventually they might then be able to form a coalition; with the FF+ playing kingmaker and tempering some of the DA’s stupider policy positions.

So yeah; I see a silver lining there actually.

Still very disappointed in the ANC and EFF’s good showings though. Maybe time to dust off my CV again.

You're making some assumptions here.

The first is that it's only Afrikaners, or that if the FF+ got some scale behind them they would confine themselves to that. When all their own leaders have not been saying that for a very long time, their manifesto launch had more coloured speakers than white ones I'm pretty sure. If the DA loses 2 million votes, they're holed below the waterline, there's no recovery from that. So the danger here is, you're sorta relying on the FF+ to be nasty bastards or something (?), when they already don't behave like that.

The second is that this would win the DA black votes. The first problem is you would have to highlight it, which means calling those that voted FF+ racist, which means probably losing more to the FF+. But the main problem with this, is it was always wrong that the DA could somehow rebrand itself and ANC voters would accept it. Politics is like religion in SA, you're either part of the ANC church or not, and only the ANC can decide if you are or not. It will never allow the DA entry. There's been plenty of parties that were decent enough, and had no white people involved at all really, they weren't in the ANC church and got nowhere.

The reality is this. The ANC and EFF combined are at about 70%, which isn't much change from where the ANC alone was in the mid 00s. Only a culture change will shift that, which could come suddenly in any election, or take a long time. Until then any opponent is really only in a fight for survival against the others in the remaining 30%.

I agree completely.

I’m not saying it will be true, only that the DA’s best play going forward will be to play to the perception that it is. They need a boogeyman that is more to the right, or just perceived to be more to the right. Another party with a significant set of voters that will grant them plausible deniability when the next race-based scandal breaks out.

It’s a chickensh**t strategy, don’t get me wrong, but at this point I’ll take anything that will unseat the ANC and cut off their access to state funds.

Only straight down the middle non-racialism, and refusal to support any race based laws is going to work. It's the only way to keep a multi racial/language/ethnic party like the DA together. Only way to build any cross community trust.

If they attempt some dodgy divide and rule trick, they're locking in losing more votes before they even start. If they try doing that and fail, it's then sort of hard to reload and do the opposite. Politics is about the long game and trust, especially in SA. The DA actually lost a small amount to the FF+ in 2014, but it wasn't spoken about much. They've lost a lot more this time wherever the total ends up. You can be sure there's more potential losses if they get this wrong.

I guess the big danger is a split in the party (although part of me would welcome that). It's all held together by winning. If people can see those lost votes would be big enough to start a party with had they split, it will become tempting if the party isn't winning for long enough.

This is a lot like the rust belt voters who voted for Obama twice, then voted for Trump once, and were called racists isn't it? Good luck winning those voters back with that tactic, or keeping their friends and family on your side.

It's just a retarded nailed certainty, to double up the loses next time.

Which is why I suspect it's something close to what the DA will do.

So you would vote FF+? Or tell me why you did not?

Voting is secret in SA. :roll:

It's obvious to me why Afrikaans speakers were more likely to vote FF+, and why English speakers were more likely to vote DA. You wouldn't have bothered asking your question if you understood this. For English speakers liberal political parties PFP/DP/DA have tribal attachment, that level of loyalty means you put up with more. You vote for it, like an ANC voter does, even if it's a pile of sh**t. Afrikaans speakers do not have this attachment. The chances of an English speaker from KZN not voting DA, is remote. The chances of such a person staying quiet and repeating a load of rubbish that's bad for the DA, is also remote.

If the DA starts coming out with this "it's the RACISTS!!" as an explanation, then they're going to lose more next time. It also doesn't work if it's just wrong, they've had growing coloured support in the WC and NC for awhile now, their WC premier candidate was coloured (the DA's was white). I would rather not see the FF+ on 1 million, they're going to be near enough halfway to that by the end of this election. Once a party has that sort of size, it creates its own momentum that isn't dictated by opponents.

If the DA adopts the position you're taking. They're going to have a worse result in 2024. Going on some witch hunt and smearing people, just means the places the DA lost half its vote this time lose the other half next time.