2024 South African general election, 29 May:

[Estrella]

The provincial contests are something to watch too. Even if ANC is heading for an utterly catastrophic result, they have enough of a cushion that they'll almost certainly keep their majorities in the very black, very rural and very poor provinces of Eastern Cape (where they won 69% in 2019), Mpumalanga (71% in 2019) and Limpopo (75% in 2019). Western Cape is the only province governed by the opposition (55% for DA and only 28% for ANC) and even though DA has its own share of scandals and failures, they don't look like they'll lose much – even if they don't win a majority, they have a choice of right-wing partners like VF+ and ACDP.

Other provinces are less clear-cut. ANC does better among rural Coloureds in Northern Cape than urban ones in Western Cape (who are the reason why DA holds the province and Cape Town) and they won a majority here with 57% against 26% for DA, but the rise of various small Coloured parties like the frankly scary Patriotic Alliance, plus EFF taking black ANC voters will be more than enough to do them in. The question is if a coalition of DA+EFF+probably also two or three more parties will hold together for more than five seconds. North West is held by the ANC with 62%, but it's also EFF's strongest province (18% and second place) thanks to its strength among unionized miners after the Marikana massacre. I'd guess that opposition wins here too, but trying to hold together an EFF+DA+VF coalition would be... interesting. Free State is held by the ANC by a similar margin (ANC 61%, DA 18%, EFF 13%) but doesn't really have big cities or a strong non-white opposition demographic like miners or Coloureds so perhaps ANC will stay above 50% if they're lucky. In all of these provinces it's possible that if ANC is close enough to a majority, it will instead find a minor party (certainly not DA or VF+ and probably not EFF either) willing to whore itself out for a sufficiently big bag of cash, so who knows.

Gauteng is SA's richest and most populous province, but also one with major social problems (even by SA standards) with poverty, crime and violence against immigrants from other African countries. In 2019, ANC held its majority only by a hair (50.2% ANC, 27.5% DA, 14.7% EFF) and this time they'll obviously fall far behind. I don't think DA has much room to grow, but EFF does very well with frustrated young urban black people, and there's a new kid on the block – ActionSA, the libertarian-ish but mostly anti-immigrant party of Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba. Again there's the usual mystery of how the hell do you hold together a coalition ranging from wannabe Mugabe to wannabe Verwoerd, but what makes it worse is that Gauteng already has an experience with how well that goes. Since ANC lost its majority in Joburg in 2016, the city has had nine different mayors, the current one being a member of the tiny Islamist party Al Jama-ah that won literally 1% in the city election.

KwaZulu-Natal could be the most interesting race. A former bastion of the Zulu IFP, after Jacob Zuma was elected ANC leader and dispelled the old image of the party as 'Xhosa Nostra', ANC gained control of the province. IFP was weakened further after a pro-ANC faction left to found the NFP and for a while it looked like the party might be on the brink of death. They had something of a dead cat bounce in 2019 (the provincial result was 54% ANC, 16% IFP, 14% DA, 10% EFF), but they still won less than IFP+NFP together five years before. They've been doing a bit better recently though as a kind of default vote for (especially rural and traditionalist) Zulus disappointed with ANC. As for Zuma, he's still incredibly popular among his people: there were the infamous riots and lootings in Durban after his arrest for corruption, and his recently founded outfit MK Party is making a huge splash. A poll put its support in KZN at 24% (!) and it remains to be seen how far ANC will fall.

[Estrella]

That kind of SA diaspora is probably everywhere tbh. Rory Sabbatini, a golfer who married a Slovak woman and won us a silver medal in Tokyo got in hot water after people noticed that he has a tattoo that suspiciously resembles the three sevens in the logo of AWB. His wife explained that it's actually three Ls that stand for "love, laughter, loyalty" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Estrella]

ANC was doing badly already, but their campaign couldn’t have got off to a worse start: Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, the Speaker of the National Assembly had her home raided, was arrested and charged with corruption.

[Estrella]

Is it surprising that no one from the ANC in parliament has defected to join MK? Seems odd that Zuma has no loyalists. Or is he just seen as so tainted?

They can't. Floor crossing is banned in South Africa, although the ban was briefly lifted a few times in the past, like when the remains of NP found out they can't stand being in opposition and decided to merge into ANC.

[Estrella]

6 Rise Mzansi
5 Democratic Alliance
5 Umkhonto we Sizwe
4 Action SA
4 African National Congress
4 African Transformation Movement
4 Freedom Front Plus
4 Inkatha Freedom Party
4 Patriotic Alliance
3 Economic Freedom Fighters

Mzansi first and DA second is exactly what I'd've expected, but after that it gets pretty wacky.

[Estrella]

Five years ago.

[Estrella]

It’s looking like a repeat of 2021 in that everywhere is turning against whoever is the dominant party there.

[Estrella]

Interestingly MK seems to be taking voters overwhelmingly from ANC and to a lesser extent EFF. Inkatha is not only not losing much to MK, they're also sweeping up whatever remains of NFP. In Eastern Cape on the other hand, ANC is not taking the remaining UDM vote, in fact UDM seems to be doing a tiny bit better.

[Estrella]

Anyone know how GOOD may fare? I find the party pretty interesting.

Last time they got two MPs nationally and one provincial legislator in Western Cape. They won't do any better than that this time and they could lose all three, although De Lille is enough of a household name that they might save something.

[Estrella]

According to the projection and current results for parties not included in it, the National Assembly would look something like this:

ANC 170 (-60)
DA 88 (+4)
MK 55 (new)
EFF 36 (-8)
IFP 14 (=0)
PA 9 (+9)
FF 6 (-4)
Action 4 (new)
ACDP 3 (-1)
UDM 3 (+1)
CCC 3 (new)
Aljama 2 (+1)
Rise 2 (new)
Bosa 2 (new)
PAC 2 (+1)
Hope 1 (new)

ANC+EFF, ANC+DA and ANC+MK are the only two-party coalitions that reach a majority.

[Estrella]

Pomfret has reported no? At least I saw from a Dawie tweet yesterday and it was unanimous eff and anc. 

I thought about that tweet too, but I looked up the actual 2019 results there and the comparison doesn't fit, so it was probably a mistake. ANC still won though.

86742906 Nameka: ANC 48%, EFF 24%, DA 18%
86740106 Pic-a-Pau: ANC 73%, DA 14%, EFF 9%

In the 2021 locals, DA did win both VDs:

86742906 Nameka: DA 70%, ANC 19%, EFF 11%
86740106 Pic-a-Pau: DA 55%, ANC 31%, EFF 14%

[Estrella]

It's going to take like a week to count this damn thing, isn't it.

https://twitter.com/SnowReportSA/status/1796181609760051527

[Estrella]

National result with 27% counted:
ANC 42.2%
DA 25.4%
EFF 8.9%
MK 8.2%
PA 4.0%
IFP 2.3%
VF 2.0%
Action 0.9%
ACDP 0.6%
UDM 0.6%
Cape Coloured Congress 0.5%
Others 4.4%

[Estrella]

Elections 2024: Counting almost complete by Thursday afternoon, says IEC

"By 15:00, most voting stations had finished counting. By 16:00, results had been concluded for 22.6% of the 23 292 voting districts."

Is IEC adding up the numbers with an abacus they stole from the National Museum or what?

[Estrella]

With 88.7% counted, ANC is at 40.7% and DA at 21.7%. Not inconveivable that ANC could fall below 40% (!) and DA could beat their 22.2% National Assembly peak from 2014.

[Estrella]

To the surprise of no-one, Zuma is trying to STOP THE STEAL by acting like a cliché B movie mafia boss.

Former president Jacob Zuma has insisted that the official results of the 2024 general elections should not be declared on Sunday. Zuma said any declaration of the election outcome by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) would be tantamount to "provoking" his new uMkontho weSizwe Party. "We are going to need the time. Nobody must declare tomorrow. If that happens, people will be provoked, we know what we are talking about. I am hoping whoever is responsible is hearing us. Don't start trouble when there is no trouble." He questioned who the IEC was working for. “You are supposed to be working for us. This is not for us to trouble us as South Africans because we know we needed a two-thirds majority. Don’t try to interfere,” Zuma said, adding that those who are meant to receive their complaints must be tolerant.