OPINIONISTA: With factionalism rife in the ANC & DA, and the EFF confused and immature, whither the 2019 election? By Oscar Van Heerden Oscarknysna
After the loss of the metros in 2016 to coalitions of the DA and EFF, what will the strategy for the ANC be to regain the confidence of the people, come the 8 May 2019 elections? Will the land question sway the votes toward the ANC? What is the state of affairs of the opposition parties? What will the percentage points be for each of the major players in this upcoming general election? And before some of you say that politics is not really my thing, just remember your vote counts.
For the DA, Patricia de Lille is not the only story, nor the “walkout” of nine of their members. There are serious identity and policy clashes inside the DA between the hard liberals and those that have a slightly more social-democratic inclination. The two parties have weak leadership: Cyril Ramaphosa may be the exception; he is slightly stronger as a leader, but by and large, the ANC does not have a strong cohort of leaders. The DA certainly doesn’t have a strong leader.
However, identities also give rise to certain absurdities, such as the ANC marching against itself in the past five years. This identity schizophrenia gives rise to the policy being subjected to mix messages from all quarters, such as we’ve seen with Sasha and SAA. The minister of finance says one thing, another minister says a different thing. One part of the party says no e-tolls, the finance minister says, no, you must pay tolls.
Regardless of what happens, it must be borne in mind that if the ANC gets 60% and above, President Ramaphosa will be fully in charge of his government and his party. The one is what could be referred to as the believers: These are people who genuinely believe in the EFF as an alternative party with an alternative ideological premise. There’s a second group that takes a wait-and-see approach which says we’ll stay in the EFF as long as it serves our purposes, and if not, we will go wherever such expectations can be fulfilled, mainly the ANC.
So where will its voters go? I think it will loyally stick with them, it will pick up some votes from the disgruntled youth, unemployed youth from the townships who don’t want to vote for the ANC because they don’t see a future with the ANC. So perhaps we can give the EFF a generous 9% in the upcoming polls, definitely not in the double-digit figures.Sometimes based on race, sometimes not, sometimes based on ideologies, sometimes on identity.
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