ANC's R1bn election budget dwarfs all of its rivals combined

Johannesburg - As South Africans vote in municipal elections that may herald the biggest shift in the political landscape since the end of apartheid, the ANC has the advantage of incumbency and a R1bn campaign budget that dwarfs all of its rivals combined.

The ANC could slip below 60% for the first time since it took power in 1994, to 54%, and lose its majority in the capital, Pretoria, Johannesburg, the economic hub, and the southern city of Port Elizabeth, according to an opinion poll by the research company Ipsos released on Tuesday. With no party expected to pass the 50% mark in all three centers, Africa’s most industrialised country may be headed for a new era of widespread coalition politics.

“If the polls prove accurate, the election will usher in an era of more competitive politics in South Africa,” Daniel Silke, director of Cape Town-based Political Futures Consultancy, said Wednesday by phone. “That will unsettle the ANC and may unleash a period of intense soul-searching in the party over leadership and policy. There is a lot riding on this.”

Failed promises

Still widely credited for ending white minority rule, the ANC now faces almost daily demonstrations over the failure of the government it leads to fulfill promises to create jobs, address poverty and improve living standards. Unemployment is at 27%, the central bank anticipates zero percent growth this year and the nation’s credit rating is at risk of being cut to junk by S&P Global Ratings in December. A succession of graft scandals implicating President Jacob Zuma has also fueled discontent.

“Things needs to change and it starts here,” said Chris Venter, a 42-year-old marketing manager who voted at Dainfern, a wealthy gated community in Johannesburg. “We can’t have leadership that thinks they own the country and can do as they please.”

Wealth divide

About 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Dainfern in the Diepsloot shantytown, retired seamstress Dorothy Mavuso, 81, said the ANC was the right choice.

“I am voting for my children and their children and their children, and there is only one party that can help us get money and jobs: the ANC,” said Mavuso, who lined up to vote at daybreak. “I will never change my vote. Never.”

The polls opened at 07:00 and are scheduled to close at 19:00, with final results expected to be announced on August 6. Two hundred parties are fielding candidates for 257 councils and a record 26.3 million people have registered to vote.

“Many voting stations reported a strong turnout from early in the day,” Glen Mashinini, the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, told reporters in Pretoria. “The situation was reported as calm and voting was under way even in areas that we identified as potential hotspots.”

The ANC’s main rivals are the Democratic Alliance, which controls Cape Town and won 22% support in national elections in 2014, and the Economic Freedom Fighters, which won 6.4%.

DA confidence

“We are feeling good, we are feeling strong,” DA leader Mmusi Maimane told the South African Broadcasting Corporation as he waited to vote in Weltevredenpark, near Johannesburg.

While the DA’s pledge to make it easier to do business is diametrically opposed to the EFF’s call for the nationalization of mines, banks and land, both parties have said they are open to forming coalitions with each other but not the ANC, increasing the likelihood of municipalities falling into opposition hands.

The Ipsos opinion poll of 3 142 eligible voters showed the ANC leading in Johannesburg by 46% to the DA’s 41%, by 47% to 43% for the DA in Pretoria and losing in the southern port city of Port Elizabeth by a 37% to 44% margin. The ANC says its own surveys show it retaining control of the main centers, while the DA says the race is neck-and-neck in Tshwane, the municipality that includes Pretoria, and Port Elizabeth.

“I came to vote because we want better services from councilors,” said Gladness Mchunu, 43-year-old maid and mother of four in Soweto, near Johannesburg. “We need houses and also for the pipes to be fixed so we have better sanitation.”

The 104-year-old ANC has the advantage of incumbency and a R1bn campaign budget that dwarfs all of its rivals combined. It’s been credited with extending access to welfare grants, clean water and housing.

“In every election our people disprove the myth that the ANC has not delivered,” Gwede Mantashe, the ANC’s secretary-general, said in a statement on Monday. “Their lived reality is of the massive improvements that have taken place in their lives since 1994. We are certain of victory.”

Zuma, who voted at a school in Nkandla in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, has come under pressure to quit since the nation’s top court ruled in March that he violated the constitution by refusing to repay taxpayer money spent on upgrading his private home.

He may also have to face 783 charges of corruption, racketeering, fraud and money laundering, following a high court ruling that prosecutors erred when they decided to drop a case against him just weeks before he became president in 2009.

“The DA does have some good management, but I think the ANC is still a better choice,” said Jacqueline Siyangama, a 38-year-old sales representative who voted in the Dainfern estate. “The faces at the top need to change and the ANC will be even better going forward.”