JOHANNESBURG—South Africa goes to the polls on May 29, with a coalition of 11 opposition parties called the Multi-Party Charter (MPC) hoping to break the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) 30-year grip on rule.
Going into the vote, surveys show that the ANC is the weakest it has been since Nelson Mandela led it to power in 1994, following decades of whites-only apartheid rule.
Corruption scandals, service delivery failures, soaring unemployment, poverty, and violent crime have damaged the former liberation movement’s prospects.
Polling experts are predicting that support for the ANC will fall below 50 percent in the national election for the first time to a result of between 45 and 48 percent and that it will partner with smaller opposition parties to remain in government.
In the event of such a poor result, the most likely outcome, according to analysts, is a coalition between the ruling party and South Africa’s most radical, leftist political formation, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
The EFF’s policies include “nationalizing” private property and businesses, including banks and mines; confiscating land, including from white farmers, for “equal redistribution” to poor black citizens; and unionizing most of the country’s workers.
The country’s official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), is leading the MPC, a coalition of parties that includes the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP); Freedom Front Plus, which represents the interests of conservative white Afrikaners; and the African Christian Democratic Party.
The 11 opposition parties have pledged to pool their votes, hoping that it will be enough to defeat the ANC.
It won’t be, according to Imraan Buccus, a senior research associate at the Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute in Johannesburg.
The organization projects that the DA will get 22 percent, with the next biggest party in the MPC, the IFP, bringing 5 percent to the table.
“After that, you’re talking about minimal percentages contributed by other coalition members. Best case scenario is the MPC ending on 30 percent of the vote, but that’s highly optimistic,” Mr. Buccus told The Epoch Times.
“The DA is the MPC’s great hope.”
Surveys see the chief opposition party gaining between 21 and 23 percent of the vote on May 29.
The DA has constructed its entire campaign around the slogan “Rescue South Africa.”
Africa’s most developed and largest economy, built on vast mineral resources, must be saved from what the DA calls a “Doomsday Coalition” between the ANC and the extremist EFF.
“The Doomsday Coalition will expropriate property without compensation and abolish private property rights. The Doomsday Coalition will nationalize businesses, banks, and mines and destroy foreign investment,” DA leader John Steenhuisen, 48, told The Epoch Times.
“The Doomsday Coalition will forge closer ties with despotic and authoritarian regimes, such as China, Russia, and Iran.
“The Doomsday Coalition will plunge this country into an ethnic and racial conflict the likes of which it has never witnessed before.”
The EFF’s charismatic firebrand leader, Julius Malema, 43, has twice been found guilty of hate speech.
Hamas is designated a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union, the UK, and others.
“The ANC is adamant that it won’t partner with the EFF, no matter what,” said professor Zwelinzima Ndevu, director of the School of Public Leadership at Stellenbosch University.
“But who knows what it will do when its back is against the wall? It’s never been under this kind of pressure before.”
A senior ANC office bearer, who asked to not be named, told The Epoch Times that the governing party is “well aware of the dangers” of establishing an alliance with the EFF.
“Most of their policies are pie-in-the-sky populism aimed at catching votes. If a government implements policies like the EFF wants, this country will go down the drain,” the official said.
“You cannot nationalize private business and seize farms and expect to have an economy. You cannot be racist and expect the currency to strengthen.”
The BMI report also raises the possibility of an ANC–DA coalition, a partnership that “would likely see the fiscal deficit narrow more than we currently anticipate and would also result in stronger economic growth and currency performance.”
The DA is pro-West and pro-business and wants to privatize South Africa’s bankrupt state-owned enterprises to ensure better delivery of services such as electricity and water.
It wants to scrap strict regulations on doing business in the country, laws that it says are stifling local and foreign investment.
The DA also wants to do away with the ANC’s Black Economic Empowerment policies, which are “just a vehicle for the corrupt part of the ANC to hijack state contracts,” according to Mr. Steenhuisen.
“We don’t need racial bean-counting. We need the best people in the top jobs regardless of skin color. We need to solve our problems by creating a society based on merit,” he said.
“There are plenty of black South Africans who deserve positions on merit, not because they happen to be connected to the ANC.”
The DA says it’ll create 2 million jobs by loosening up the labor market and incentivizing small businesses to hire young people.
Mr. Ndevu told The Epoch Times that there’s a possibility that an ANC “mortally wounded” by a poor election result could enter talks with the DA “rather than plunging the country into the chaos that an alliance with the EFF would bring.”
If both the ANC and the DA are willing to make “big compromises,” he said, their cooperation could lay the basis for a more prosperous South Africa.
“It won’t be easy, because there are serious, fundamental points of disagreement, especially around foreign policy and the economy,” Mr. Ndevu said.
“The ANC is anti-privatization and pro-China and pro-Russia, both of which are the complete opposite of what the DA subscribes to. ... But there have been occasions when the ANC has implemented DA ideas, so it’s clear the ANC has some respect for the DA.
“But both parties will have to move away from the vicious animosity that has been very evident leading into the election.”
Mr. Steenhuisen has often described the ANC as an “organized crime syndicate” and “incompetent” but has also said he won’t rule out “some form of cooperation” with the governing party.
“I’ve said before that it would depend heavily on who in the ANC we’re dealing with and what their programs and agendas are,” he said.
“I’m not ruling out anything. But whatever way we go, it will depend entirely on the election results. The DA will always do what’s best for South Africa, and if that means we have to take a least-worst option to take the country forward, we will.
“We won’t watch as racist, radical socialists burn our country to the ground.”
ANC campaign strategist Tokyo Sexwale told The Epoch Times: “Now is not the time to speak about coalitions.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa has made it clear that the ANC is not even remotely considering the need to form a coalition government.
“The opinion polls and clever analysts can say what they want, but our numbers are showing that we are going to take this election by a clear majority.”
The ANC often calls the DA a party of “white privilege.”
As in previous elections, the DA is wrestling with a “massive image problem,” according to Asanda Ngoasheng, an independent political analyst.
“It’s regarded by many black citizens as a white party, sprinkled with a few token blacks who do the bidding of the white masters,” she told The Epoch Times.
Many of the DA’s most vocal officials are white, including Mr. Steenhuisen.
“Many black people see the DA as a party of whites who see themselves superior to blacks and who are constantly highlighting the incompetence of blacks,” Ms. Ngoasheng said.
“In a country like South Africa, with our apartheid past, it would be much better if all their criticism was being voiced by credible black leaders.”
But the DA cannot attract high-profile black political personalities to win enough black votes, she said.
“This is why it will continue to play second fiddle, perhaps even third and fourth fiddle, to the ANC and the various other black organizations,” Ms. Ngoasheng said.
“The DA seems blind to a critical thing: South Africa’s a majority black country. What that means is there’s no way on this planet that you’ll be able to take over South Africa if you cannot connect with black South Africans and cannot acknowledge the history of black South Africans and the pain of black South Africans.”
Mr. Steenhuisen countered that the DA is the most racially diverse party in the country in terms of leadership.
He said his party has an “excellent record” of service delivery in the only province it governs, the Western Cape, and in other municipalities it manages where the “biggest beneficiaries of clean and accountable government are impoverished black South Africans.”
“We’re focused on job creation and specifically on creating jobs for young black people. We’ve been in government in the Cape since 2009,” Mr. Steenhuisen said. “Do you think we’d still be there if we were providing services and jobs exclusively to rich white people?”
He warned that no matter the composition of a coalition government, it would bring “volatility” to South Africa.
“Since the local elections of 2016, many of the country’s most important urban metros have been governed by coalitions,” Mr. Vandome wrote.
“But these have been seen as failures, characterized by short-lived alliances that elevate ‘political entrepreneurs’ and feed patronage politics.”
Mr. Ndevu said an ANC–DA coalition “looks impossible” going into the election.
Then he quoted Nelson Mandela: “It always seems impossible, until it’s done.”
