2024 South African general election, 29 May:

[Coldstream]

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?

[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.

[parochial boy]

Longish update on a few things that have been going on, starting with the official deadline for voter registration. Some 27.3 million people are registered to vote in 2024, a small progression on 2021, but ultimately just over two-thirds of the 40 million legible voters. When you factor in a likely turnout in the region of 60%, this means that probably only 40-50% of voting age adults will even end up voting. A pretty damning indictment of the overall enthusiasm concerning South Africa’s political offer.

In party news, John Steenhuisen and the DA have been suffering from a particularly sever bout of foot in mouth disease as of late. Firstly, while trying to clarify his party’s position on Israel, Steenhuisen came out with the rather remarkable line that “one person’s genocide is another person’s freedom fight”, which, well, the less said the better really, regardless of what you might think about that particular conflict. Somewhat worse though, was the DA sending a letter to the US embassy “inviting” it, along with other western nations, to send election observers as the DA do not believe that the IEC and the election process will be fair and free. Now, the IEC is probably the single best performing state actor and there have essentially never been any questions about whether it has been able to hold fair and free elections. Which all makes the DA’s putting the electoral process into doubt, with the subtone that “those people” couldn’t possibly manage an election fairly, a rather disturbing foray into the Trumpist world of electoral denialism.

Steenhuisen has however, now indicated that the DA is open to a coalition with the ANC, apparently to avoid a “chaotic” coalition with minor parties and/or the EFF. This somewhat undermines the whole idea of the MPC, the smaller parties looking increasingly just like a way for the DA to get votes without having people actually vote for it; but, in all honesty, this sort of grand coalition was always a very plausible scenario and it’s no surprise that it is now being explicitly discussed.

Somewhat related, the DA and Rise Mzansi have also been at loggerheads. The new party having named the Social Justice Coalition (and highly thought of in campaigning circles) leader Axolile Notywala as its Western Cape lead candidate and, much to the DA’s displeasure, is making the older party’s perceived neglect of poorer and non-white areas a centrepiece of its Western Cape provincial campaign. Notably this also helps Rise Mzansi ward off accusations of being a DA plant, which has become a particularly popular attack line used by the EFF (and the PAC, shadow of its former self that it is) against both Rise and a host of other parties (ActionSA, BOSA…) that have benefited from the financial support of various members of the wealthy Oppenheimer family (of De Beers mining fame). Meaning they get accused of being basically a version of the DA (or occasionally ANC) that is acceptable to middle class black people. Anyway, familiar story of a wealthy dynasty being accused of buying off political parties to all offer a vaguely similar mush of economically liberal policies – even if Rise in particular do highlight their base being in grassroots campaign groups (hence Notywala); and ActionSA pump their chests about foreigners etc, etc.

The ANC and MK party meanwhile are in the process of taking chunks out of each other. The ANC has unsuccessfully taken the MK party to court, attempting to remove them from the ballot based on the accusation of having stolen the Umkhonto we Sizwe brand. The MK party responded by threatening violence should they be removed before the court eventually decided in their favour. The end result being that, although the MK party is allowed to stand, Jacob Zuma himself cannot be a candidate, as he is a convicted criminal who has served a more than 15 month sentence.

Adding to this, the EFF, following its usual strategy of creating scandals about everything it touches – this time the question of whether it treated it’s MP Naledi Chirwa badly after her public humiliation after she missed a committee meeting to look after her sick baby, raising familiar questions about the authenticity of the leadership’s commitment to gender equality. But on top of that, Malema appeared to sit down to tea with Zuma, affirming that he is willing to work with him should it come to it. Itself an odd development. Once upon a time the EFF loudly condemned the Zuma clique’s corruption, before taking a much softer, downright positive, tone as they sought to pull Zuma supporters away from the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal. Now however, the MK party is clearly decimating the EFF in the province as those voters desert back to Zuma’s party, raising the question as to why Malema is so positive about Zuma now, when he had been so virulent against the IFP as it did the same thing over the last two years.

Finally, a few drop outs, the previously mentioned Change Starts Now, Roger Jardine’s new outfit, are officially out. They didn’t manage to get anywhere near the required number of signatures, making them something of a damp squib, but it’s not as if there is a lack of social liberal left-of-the-DA-competent-governance type offers this year. Similarly struggling were the somewhat infamous CAPEXIT party, you know, the Cape independence party whose ideology is largely horror at the fact that there are black people in Africa. Anyways, despite the attention the Cape independence movement gets, the party – who needed 13’000 signatures to get on the balances – managed to get 7’500 signatures. Enough to get on the Western Cape provincial ballot, but not the national one, and even here only after a panicked media whirlwind as they approached the deadline with only a few hundred signatures. Another single issue independence party, the Referendum Party also made the ballot; followed by an online petition attracting some 30’000 signatures calling for the party’s leader to be deported. The logic being that, rather hilariously, the leader of one of the two parties seeking Western Cape independence (namely from black people) is a British immigrant. Anyway, long story short is that the struggles of the two parties pretty irrevocably demonstrate that no matter how much attention it gets, the Western Cape separatist movement is ultimately the marginal fantasy of a few crackpots and not actually a serious movement.

Meanwhile an update on the municipalities:

The city of Johannesburg has plunged head first into a massive water crisis, with taps running dry repeatedly over much of the city. This is courtesy of failing water maintenance at the city’s various damns (combined with drought conditions, storms; all things that have to be reckoned with part of a post-climate change Highveld climate), which itself is the result of the chaos of constant changing governing coalition with handouts and public tenders being handed away as a manner of keeping coalition on partners, the culmination of degrading political and public management ever since Herman Mashala took power in 2016. The current mayor, Al-Jama’ah’s (a minor muslim interest party) Kabelo Gwamanda (who isn’t a muslim – don’t ask) seems completely over his head in any ability to deal with the crisis, which isn’t surprising seeing as he was only placed there to appease the various conflicting coalition partner.

In neighbouring Ekurhuleni public services are functioning somewhat better, but the ruling ANC-EFF collaboration has descended into chaos as relations between the two parties’ groups collapsed. A particular high point was the outbreak of violence on the city council hall’s floor as the EFF opposed the ANC who were supporting a motion to remove the mayor, the Africa Independent Congress’s (another micro party, see Johannesburg) Sivuyile Ngondwana, who was indeed eventually removed at a subsequent attempt raised by ActionSA. This was followed by the EFF celebrating as the city received an unqualified financial audit report, which they claim as proof that they are the functional partners (the EFF’s Nkululeko Dunga is in charge of finance) having been accused by the ANC, allied with the DA, of trying to hide their financial statements.

Significantly worse though has been the situation in Durban, where a city wide public sector strike led to the city being deprived of electricity, running water and with rubbish piling up on the streets during the first two weeks of March, with only a slow return to normal now. Ostensibly this was a wage dispute launched by one of the public sector unions, wanting to bring salaries in eThekwini to the level of the other big metros, although, as this is KZN there is obviously the unmentioned factor of MK party manoeuvering in ramping up the levels of chaos and blockage. However, in reality it is in large part down to the familiar story of corruption and maladministration, this time on the part of eThekwini’s ANC mayor Mxolisi Kaunda who has been singularly not up to the task of running the city and clamping down on the corruption. To the point where the EFF and DA teamed up earlier in the year to remove him, but failed down to the now also familiar story of support from micro parties like the African Transformation movement having their snouts at the barrel*.

Finally, another metro with problems is the city of Tshwane, home to the capital city Pretoria, whose mayor, the DA’s Cilliers Brink has come under fire for neglecting service provision in poorer areas. A familiar story of basic services falling apart, exemplified by the cholera outbreak in Hammanksraal in the north of the city at the end of last year. That is, a story of neglect in maintenance and contracts going to people whose only qualifications were a suspiciously close relationship to the decision makers. To add insult to this, Tshwane has just, in addition to being rated by the Good Governance index as having the worst decline in municipal performance of any large metro, for a second year in a row, failed its audit; having already submitted accounts late. This follows having been given repeated unqualified audit reports and ranking as one of the best managed municipalities under the previous ANC administration.

edit - and to complete the set, not mentioned yesterday but Cape Town, namely the Cape flats, is in the midst of a gangster warfare driven murder wave of terrifying proportions. Over the last three days of March some 94 people in the city were murdered. That's an annualised homicide rate of about 300 per 100'000, a lethality that is on a par with most war zones and rather points to a complete loss of control by the city's administration.

*You might note that there are a surprising number of parties with names like the “Africa something congress” or “African national something”, this isn’t a coincidence, lots of micro-parties basically give themselves names that resemble “ANC” as much as possible out of the hope that people vote for them by mistake.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Haha. Cool.

[Logical]

I've been wondering how much of a turnout advantage White South Africans have over other races when considering the entire voting age population, not just registered voters.

[parochial boy]

I've been wondering how much of a turnout advantage White South Africans have over other races when considering the entire voting age population, not just registered voters.

Fromer here.

This is just the metros, but confirms the DA do indeed have a (slight) turnout advantage. Also that Coloureds and Indians are particularly politically disillusioned, rather unsurprisingly. That and confirming the uncomfortable truth that white South Africans, despite their complaints about the alleged blind herd mentality of black voters, are a rather more homogenous voting block than black people actually are (especially in Cape Town)*.

*This being only the metros (without Ekurhuleni) probably understates the white FF+ vote, although the authors of the study point out that the ANC scores in their survey are actually higher than the real ones - so the black ANC vote is probably actually lower than the numbers suggest. The white subsample is also roughly 350 people, so that EFF score is presumably one person who happens to live in Joburg.

[xelas81]

In party news, John Steenhuisen and the DA have been suffering from a particularly sever bout of foot in mouth disease as of late. Firstly, while trying to clarify his party’s position on Israel, Steenhuisen came out with the rather remarkable line that “one person’s genocide is another person’s freedom fight”, which, well, the less said the better really, regardless of what you might think about that particular conflict.

No, he should double down and say the loser leave town. /s

[jaichind]

https://twitter.com/ElectsWorld/status/1778150656731214031

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

Some by-elections occurred yesterday in a few wards around SA (middle column is the results from the previous election):



tl;dr:

1 DA Gain from ANC
1 ANC gain from EFF
1 local-interest party gain from ANC
1 PA gain from DA
1 PA gain from ANC

Edit: Here's a thread with more insight than I can offer:

https://twitter.com/DawieScholtz/status/1783329156698128534

[parochial boy]

If people like to do who should you vote for tests

https://mg.co.za/quiz/2024-04-18-party-policy-quiz/

[RFK Jr.’s Brain Worm]

If people like to do who should you vote for tests

https://mg.co.za/quiz/2024-04-18-party-policy-quiz/

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

Interesting; for as much as I admire Nelson Mandela, I can’t say I would vote for today’s ANC. Maybe the DA? EFF, IFP, ATM, PA, and FF+ are a definite no. MK might be the worst of the bunch. Action SA doesn’t seem that great. Rise Mzansi doesn’t seem too bad, but I don’t know that much about them beyond this thread and their Wiki article.

[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.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

Rise Mzansi
7
African National Congress
6
African Transformation Movement
6
Patriotic Alliance
6
Economic Freedom Fighters
4
Inkatha Freedom Party
4
Umkhonto we Sizwe
4
Action SA
3
Freedom Front Plus
3
Democratic Alliance
2


Mzansi first isn't particularly surprising, though DA being so far down is, though admittedly some of my answers might be a bit ignorant of the situation.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Rise Mzansi
6
Action SA
5
African Transformation Movement
5
Umkhonto we Sizwe
5
African National Congress
4
Democratic Alliance
4
Freedom Front Plus
4
Patriotic Alliance
3
Economic Freedom Fighters
2
Inkatha Freedom Party
2

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

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

Very unexpected. Probably the nuclear power and border questions that caused this.

[Vosem]

9 ActionSA
9 Democratic Alliance
8 Freedom Front Plus
6 Inkatha Freedom Party
6 Patriotic Alliance
5 Rise Msanzi
4 African Transformation Movement
2 Umkhonto we Sizwe
1 Economic Freedom Fighters
0 African National Congress (lol)

[warandwar]

Regime!

African National Congress
8
Economic Freedom Fighters
6
Umkhonto we Sizwe
6
Action SA
2
African Transformation Movement
2
Inkatha Freedom Party
2
Patriotic Alliance
2
Rise Mzansi
2
Democratic Alliance
1
Freedom Front Plus
1

[parochial boy]

If people like to do who should you vote for tests

https://mg.co.za/quiz/2024-04-18-party-policy-quiz/

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

Interesting; for as much as I admire Nelson Mandela, I can’t say I would vote for today’s ANC. Maybe the DA? EFF, IFP, ATM, PA, and FF+ are a definite no. MK might be the worst of the bunch. Action SA doesn’t seem that great. Rise Mzansi doesn’t seem too bad, but I don’t know that much about them beyond this thread and their Wiki article.

Me personally, I would say Rise Msanzi are the worst of a bad bunch. At least from the perspective of someone looking at things from a left or left of centre perspective, seeing as the EFF's attitudes towards things like Jacob Zuma or Russia rather put them beyond the pale. As in, Rise's manifesto was a pretty disappointing series of centrist-neoliberal technocratic policies that don't really measure up to the size of the challenge and don't really support their self professed Social Democratic orientation. And they are often a bit too seemingly focussed on the idea that the real issue is getting more competent leadership and the rest will follow.

That said, rhetorically they are very on point. They make the right criticisms and bring up the right topics which is why in particular they have gathered the ire of the DA. For instance, bringing up the absolutely horrific state of Cape Town's townships. Places like Khayelitsha and Nyanga are far more insalubrious and grim than Soweto is. They also seem to have moved quite noticeably to the left in terms of messaging over their short existence, which seems to be the influence of the activists in the party, who talk a lot of about inequalities and neglect of poorer areas.

At least that's my own personal opinion. I could understand someone holding their nose and voting DA a decade ago maybe. But where they are now, pushing forward mad libertarian policies that they don't even dare implement in the places they run, combined with the unashamed racial resentment and the old story of neglecting poor and black areas puts them well beyond the realm of what is acceptable.

[morgieb]

How you rate with South Africa's other political parties:

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

So like most Western leftists no major party is a great fit. The more I think about it the more likely it becomes that if I lived in South Africa (and somehow had similar views to IRL) I'd just suck it up and vote ANC......

[parochial boy]

Another long update to start the month of May.

As mentioned, there was a set of by-elections. Taken individually these never show much, but in aggregate do tend to point to trends, and the April set do seem to confirm what was already seeming be the case. That is, broadly speaking that the DA are taking a pasting in rural Coloured areas. Even in their heartland on the Western Cape’s West Coast they lost a stack of votes, mostly to the Patriotic Alliance who seem like they will be a big factor. That said, there relatively little data from the City of Cape Town, home to a majority of the WC's voters, to indicate what might happen there. The DA do seem to be doing solidly in whiter, often Afrikaans speaking areas, but this is in the context of the FF+ not standing, which may or may not be a sign of the nationalist party not being as strong as thought. The EFF are broadly speaking stagnating, even where the MK Party aren’t a factor, so if you factor in them losing a shedload of votes to Zuma’s outfit in KwaZulu-Natal and the parts of Mpumalanga and Gauteng with larger Zulu populations, it’s not a great sign. The ANC still seem solid in rural areas, but also worth remarking on MK Party scoring a miserly 1-2% in by-elections in the Eastern Cape and in Polokwane, which would seem to imply that they have a very limited appeal outside of Zulu areas, which puts a potentially lower than expected lid on what kind of score they might anticipate on the 29th.

On a related note, the various polling around has been a source of controversy. As a general rule, there is a complete lack of transparency within the polling industry in South Africa. Very little in the way of industry standards and the pollsters almost never release crosstabs or demographic data or any sort of methodology, which naturally tends to make people suspicious. In particular, the DA have been stung for leaking rigged polls to the press without a source, earning them criticism from their own theoretical allies ActionSA. Likewise, although not disclosed, the Social Research Foundation and Brenthurst are both run by DA aligned figures, so when they release polls showing the DA on an eyebrow raising 25% (as in completely at odds with what the local by elections are saying, as well as with assumption about parties like the National Coloured Congress or PA eating into their working class coloured electorate; and Rise Mzansi or ActionSA eating into the middle class one). Well it raised questions about why the DA are in such a panic in the Western Cape if their own internal polling is at all consistent with what the published polls say. The DA having the reputation of being heavily driven by what their internal polling indicates. Which all sounds very conspiratorial I admit, the point is mostly that the sparse polling that is released is often attacked and decredibilised by those dissapointed in what it is showing; and that the polling industry does not help itself assuage those doubts. Ipsos are more credible however, even if not historically super accurate.

Coming back to the subject of the DA and its polling though, it has dramatically ramped up the attacks, in particular on the black led parties like Rise Mzansi, ActionSA and the PA in the Western Cape. DA leader John Steenhuisen came out with (yet another) jaw dropping rant where he accused these parties of only being in the Western Cape as there was “nothing else left to loot” in the rest of the country. Not just making out as if it was illegitimate to challenge the DA in its space, but touching a real nerve over the parallels with Apartheid era Nationalist politicians making exactly the same sorts of claims (followed by the bizarre flag burning ad, that I won't dwell on to try and avoid turning this into too much of an anti-DA propaganda screed). All this in conjunction with stirring up resentment against the Cape’s largely Xhosa migrant population as “they are all moving to the Western Cape for better services”, a rather misleading statement as the country’s biggest destination for internal migration is still Gauteng, by a mile, which offers a much better opportunity at social mobility than the Cape does, and generally better living standards than the Cape Flats' far flung townships do*. All things considered, it is a depressing return to the swart gevaar (black danger) rhetoric that has historically been use to mobilise racist sentiment against black South Africans, and touches on incredibly sore still open wounds. Which, in conjunction with the continued unfounded attempts to cast doubt on the IEC and electoral process it all marks worrying steps towards the far right of the opposition party.

In particular, the DA have repeatedly clashed with Rise Mzansi. With Rise recently launching an attach over the complete absence of waste collection in parts of the Cape Flats. In fairness, Cape Town’s DA mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis did respond well to this, admitting that the contractor tasked with refuse collection had simply scarpered and not fulfilled the contract and that the City was looking to “insource” waste collection. Hill-Lewis is an effective mayor overall, but it does show the funny contradiction between what the DA does well – namely run public services, and it’s ideological obsession wanting to privatise everything that moves, something that often ends badly**.

Moving onto other parties – Zuma is back on the ballot. Which in some ways has its upsides as it shows the courts’ independence and that the ANC cannot simply get its way in terms of keeping people away from standing for election. Of course though, the MK Party has used this saga to claim victim status, and accuse the IEC in particular as being biased and that it will not hold a free and fair election. The latest claim is that the Americans will rig the election, taking advantage of the DA’s letter to the American ambassador earlier in the campaign. All the more worrying as it ramps up the threats of violence alongside its electoral denialism (comparing Zuma to Trump has become very popular for some reason…). The party has also taken on increasingly hard right positions towards migrants, the LGBT community and an increasingly ethnocentric and Zulu supremacist rhetoric, all combined with the release of a blatantly unconstitutional and antidemocratic manifesto. Included in its pledges are that parliament will have supremacy over the constitution as well as the creation of an upper “house of traditional rulers”, that would, in effect, give an unelected noble class the right to veto democracy. As a funnier aside, Zuma also wants to reduce the number of provinces to four and increase tribal sovereignty. It’s somewhat amusing to see a party called Umkhonto we Sizwe pushing for a return of the apartheid era’s administrative subdivisions, but hey, all good.

Staying with the MK Party it has also (entirely predictably), managed to kick of a war with itself. That is, party founder and number two on the list Jabulani Khumalo managed to get himself full out expelled from the party, being accused of working for “enemy” (ie the ANC) forces. Obviously he was only ever meant to be a front man for Zuma, but his expulsion does point to deep rifts within the party. Unsurprising as the only reason it really exists is to gather around Zuma to access power and patronage, with no actual ideological founding. Which means that an MK party approaching power would probably wound up being defined by endless internal infighting and squabbles. Khumalo is now, rather hillariously, campaigning for the ANC.

(edit - latest is that Khumalo has now suspended Zuma from the party and written to the IEC asking for Zuma to be removed from the MK Party's list. Amazing scenes).

The ANC up until now have seemed to be weirdly absent from the debate (not surprising in part, given its offline and ageing electorate), but has ramped things up in recent days, wheeling out old greats like Thabo Mbeki to campaign. However, where the ANC has been loud has been in attacking the MK Party and Zuma. And, well, you have to hand it to Zuma to the fact he has managed to make the ANC almost likeable again. Purely because anyone attacking Zuma comes across well. Although you then also have to hand it to the ANC for being so crap that they inadvertently score own goal after own goal in campaigning against the MK Party. The court saga hasn’t helped; the pretending everything that they have done wrong was - actually - Zuma's fault too hasn’t helped; but neither have the little things. For example, the ANC Youth Leader accusing the Zulu of being inherently “tribalist”. Like, perhaps if you want people not to desert you to the opposition, starting out by not insulting them would be a more helpful tactic.

Ramaphosa himself often comes across as seeming increasingly hopeless (ie all indicators – economic, security, load shedding*** have just continued to get worse over the course of his term and there seems to be no real plan to resolve these), and the rumours are that he might resign in the event of the ANC falling far short of a majority. The noises from inside ANC are that DA is preferred coalition partner, in particular they are fed up of chaos in their municipal level partnerships with the EFF, but this also depends on DA acquiescing to idea of being junior partner, and abandoning some of its more out their policies. Certainly, a DA-ANC coalition seems to be the most popular option among the public if the polling is to be believed.

Finally, the EFF continue to apply their heady mix of opportunism, authoritarianism and undermining their own professed values. For instance, having previously defended the IEC, Julius Malema, a man who never holds the same opinion for longer than 72 hours in a row, has also now started attacking it over fictional electoral manipulation. Likewise, the party has been depending Zuma despite his racism/xenophobia/misogyny/homophobia and phony playing the victim, as if none of the EFF’s supposed social progressive side matters at all as long as they get a shot at a few ministerial positions, their own electorate and agenda be damned.

The EFF have, however, earned the “qualified” and “tactical” support of Abahlali Basemjondolo, the shack dwellers association, which could be influential in their heartland around Durban (they supported the SRWP in 2019 though, so maybe not). This is not an uncritical support, as the organization remain critical of the EFF’s authoritarianism, but the support is qualified on the EFF’s status on land redistribution, the role of the state and war in Gaza “failing a genuine left wing and redistributive party in South Africa”. So while a little surprising, this support isn’t too much of a shock, as Abahlali have longed viewed their endorsement as a tactical measure to gain leverage on certain areas. In particular, at the moment they are experiencing a targeted assassination campaign, something like 25 figures in the movement have been killed over the last couple of years, at the alleged hands of the ANC and MK Party. So the support for the EFF, in particular as regards Malema’s party’s stances on land – the main source of opposition to the ANC (and therefore of danger to Abahlali members), is consistent with this priority.

*Of course, the DA also released an economic policy document, the policy that got the most attention being their plan to phase out the minimum wage, currently a hefty 27 Rand ($1.40) an hour. A bit of pop sociology here, but it demonstrates how apartheid still directly impacts life in the country, but poor people in South Africa – especially in the case of Cape Town – overwhelmingly live in the apartheid era townships built well away from the urban and employment centres. What this means is that in order to reach their places of employment, township dwellers are forced to undertake long, and expensive commutes than can often eat up close to half of their net income. Getting rid of the minimum wage would simply mean they could no longer even afford these commutes, with the predictable consequence of having to drop out of the labour market.

** Ok, again, the South African private sector is no stranger to corruption scandals. This case, but the most recent glaring example has been the Steinhoff scandal – an accounting scandal that led to the much publicized suicide former CEO and chief defendant Markus Jooste. Add to this the scandals around Checkers supermarket; the Health and Racquet saga, the literal meaning of the word tenderpreneur all demonstrate a certain naivety in the belief that the solution to corruption lies simply in reducing the scope of the state.

***Although load shedding has declined massively since the start of the campaign. Which Eskom claims is because things have turned a corner. Except, well, everyone was predicting that loadshedding would magically improve during the campaign and lo and behold it has. That is because Eskom can keep things together for the short term, but will inevitably lead to the system crashing and a return to stage 6 once the election is over. This is all conspiracy theories and popular perception of course, there is no hard evidence that loadshedding is temporarily better just to ake the ANC look effective.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

What will the policy demands for each of the coalition options be? What will the DA demand from the ANC  compared to the EFF ?

[parochial boy]

That's the million dollar question, and so far there has been almost no concerete discussion around it. It really is hard to say as it is uncharted territory so far as coalition negotiations go. And the examples at municipal level, well let's just say they aren't exactly enlightening.

I dare say that the ANC and DA would be fairly compatible, as once you get past headline grabbing and not entirely realistic demands on both sides most of the substance of their manifestos can be aligned fairly well. So stuff about more independent electricity producers, their plans for social grants, some tax and spend reforms like zero rating VAT on food can all be worked out. The biggest sticking issue policy wise would be the NHI (NHS) but even with an ANC majority it has a very limited chance of actually being introduced any time soon. In which case the DA could present that as a "win", probably comprising against the fact that the minimum wage and BEE won't go anywhere.

The EFF (and MK party) are harder to predict, but the key demands would almost certainly be around positions of influence and power. For instance, the EFF have said they would support the ANC on condition of Floyd Shivambu (Malema's second in charge) being made finance minister. Which is obviously a move that supports the DA's theory that Malema (and Zuma) are mostly interested in personal enrichment.

In both cases, I think the issue would be less policies and more resource allocation. In so far as a lot of the debate turns a lot more around quality of governance and corruption than it does on specific policy offers.