John Daniel is the academic director of the School of International Training in Durban, South Africa.

Roger Southall is a professor of sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Zunami!

The South African Elections of 2009

By Roger Southall, John Daniel

Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd and Konrad Adenauer Foundation

Copyright © 2009 The editors and authors
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77009-722-3

Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Page,
Preface,
Contributors,
Statistical Note,
Abbreviations,
1 Zunami! The Context of the 2009 Election,
2 Trends in Party Support and Voter Behaviour, 1994 — 2009,
3 The Electoral System and Electoral Administration,
4 The ANC’s National Election Campaign of 2009: Siyanqoba!,
5 Congress of the People: Between Foothold of Hope and Slippery Slope,
6 Strategy, Sacrifice or Sour Grapes? Cope versus the ANC in the Eastern Cape,
7 The Democratic Alliance: Consolidating the Official Opposition,
8 The IFP Campaign: Indlovu ayisindwa kwabaphambili!,
9 South Africa’s Smaller Parties (UDM, ACDP, ID and FF+): Searching for a Role and Fighting for Survival,
10 Azapo, MF, PAC and UCDP: Searching for a Role and Fighting for Survival,
11 Godzille and the Witches: Gender and the 2009 Elections,
12 Desperately Seeking Depth: The Media and the 2009 Elections,
13 The National and Provincial Electoral Outcomes: Continuity with Change,
14 Glancing Back, Looking Ahead: Tilting Left?,
Notes,
Other titles available from Jacana,

CHAPTER 1

Zunami! The Context of the 2009 Election

Roger Southall

‘Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has reopened the African National Congress succession debate, saying any effort to stop Deputy President Jacob Zuma becoming the party’s next president would be like “trying to fight against the big wave of a tsunami”.’

— Business Day, 8 March 2005

On 22 April 2009, over 18 million South Africans went to the polls to vote in their country’s fourth general democratic elections. That the African National Congress (ANC) would once again secure a substantial victory was never in doubt, and the electorate duly responded by returning the ruling party to power. At the national level, the ANC secured 65.9% of the votes cast and a total of 264 seats in the 400-member National Assembly. Although this represented a loss of 15 seats and 3.8% of the total vote, compared with the 2004 election, the result was hugely impressive. ‘Despite opposition gains’, remarked Carol Paton of the Financial Mail, ‘the ANC looks set to govern for many years.’ Election 2009, it might seem, had proved to be business as usual. Yet such a conclusion is demonstrably unjustified, for events had conspired to generate excitement about this particular contest which rivalled that leading up to the ‘liberation election’ of 1994. The reasons were several, but above all they revolved around one singular, remarkable man: Jacob Zuma. More particularly, the electoral context was shaped by the way Zuma’s rise to the presidency of the ANC had fuelled the formation of a new party of opposition, the Congress of the People (Cope), by dissidents from within the ruling party who reserved their political loyalty for former president Thabo Mbeki.

Struggle within the ANC

Thabo Mbeki, who had succeeded Nelson Mandela as president in 1999, was bound under the Constitution to stand down from the presidency at the expiry of two terms (in effect, the moment of the 2009 election). This dynamic was always likely to produce a succession contest within the party, especially since Mbeki had ensured that there was no obvious crown prince. However, the situation was rendered particularly volatile by his spectacular fall-out with Jacob Zuma, a one-time long-term ally from the years of exile whom he had appointed deputy president following his own election (by parliament) as president.

Zuma had emerged as the standard-bearer of the hopes, not merely of motley interests offended by Mbeki, but above all of the organised political left within the tripartite alliance, which linked the ANC to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). Broadly, the left had felt marginalised within the alliance since the adoption by the government of the pro-market, some said ‘neo-liberal’, Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) programme in 1996, a move that marked a sharp ideological shift away from the more collectivist Redistribution and Development Programme, which had, effectively, constituted the ANC’s election manifesto in 1994. Although the ANC government’s implementation of economic policy had shifted away from the constraints of Gear, so that by the early years of the 21st century it provided for a remarkably high level of transfer payments to poorer citizens in the form of pensions and other grants, the left continued to feel excluded from influence. Consequently, from around 2001, Cosatu and the SACP had resolved to utilise ANC structures to secure the election of a candidate of their own choice to succeed Mbeki as leader of the party, and by implication as president. Their choice fell upon Jacob Zuma, who, while having held high position within the ANC in exile, was not drawn from the party’s traditional aristocracy but came from a humble background, had little formal education and remained very much a ‘man of the people’.

However, Zuma came with considerable baggage, notably allegations that he had become embroiled in a web of corruption emanating from the government’s 1998 arms deal with a clutch of European arms companies. Initially, the independent National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) was reluctant to charge him. However, in May 2005, one of Zuma’s close associates, Schabir Shaik, was convicted in the High Court of corruption relating to the arms deal. Critically, the court proceedings had revealed that Zuma — even while deputy president — was heavily dependent financially upon Shaik, a connection Judge Hilary Squires concluded the defendant had used to secure advantage for his company, Nkobi Holdings. While Shaik insisted that the numerous payments he had made to Zuma were based upon friendship forged during the liberation struggle, Squires concluded they were bribes.

The political fall-out was dramatic. By this time, Mbeki had seemingly concluded that Zuma was unsuitable material to succeed him, and the personal connection had begun to unravel. The outcome of the court case brought this process to a head. Within a matter of days, Mbeki ‘relieved’ Zuma of his responsibilities as deputy president, whilst the NPA summoned up the courage to launch a prosecution against him. Yet Zuma’s own allies rallied round, and Mbeki, who had alienated many high-ranking party members in addition to the left, was now slapped down by the ANC’s high-level National Working Committee, which dictated that, until proven guilty in the courts, Zuma should retain the deputy presidency of the party. The decision was key, for not only did it give expression to a widespread allegation that Zuma was a victim of a political conspiracy, but it left him with his party platform from which to campaign for the party presidency. This was up for grabs at the ANC’s 52nd national conference, scheduled to be held in the northern town of Polokwane (formerly Pietersburg) in December 2007.

Mbeki had succeeded Mandela as the ANC’s leader in 1997. Thereafter, he was re-elected in 2002 prior to his beginning a second term as state president after leading the ANC to a resounding victory in the election of 2004. Yet while he was constitutionally barred from serving a third term as state president, the ANC’s own constitution imposed no such obstacle to his re-election as party leader. His decision to exploit this lack of congruence in the two constitutions was fateful. Although ANC mythology maintained that party leaders emerged from the will of the people and did not campaign for office, the reality had always been different. In this case, Mbeki’s decision to stand for a third term as party leader implied both that he was determined to block Zuma and that he wanted to continue to exercise power from behind the presidential throne beyond 2009.

The dynamics of the succession struggle are explored in Chapter Four. Suffice it to say here that the mobilisation of popular forces behind Zuma culminated in his victory at Polokwane, where he won the vote of some 60% of the delegates. His personal triumph was matched by his supporters securing effective control of the party machinery, and their determination that during his remaining months in office Mbeki should recognise the superior authority of the party, meaning that there should be only one (the party) and not two (the party and the state) ‘centres of power’. After Polokwane, the battle between the Zuma and Mbeki wings of the party continued, being fought out at national, provincial and local levels.

The struggle took place against the background of the NPA’s continuing pursuit of Zuma through the courts. This was countered by his lawyers who adopted a ‘Stalingrad’ strategy to challenge every legal move made by the state. Things came to a head on 12 September 2008 when, in their latest appeal to the High Court, Zuma’s defence counsel secured backing for their claim that his prosecution was politically motivated in a ruling that the prosecution of Zuma was invalid, Judge Chris Nicholson asserting that there had been executive interference with the independence of the NPA. This provided the opportunity for which many of Zuma’s backers had been looking. The outcome was the decision in September 2008 of the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to ‘recall’ Mbeki from the presidency.

Mbeki could have challenged the NEC by forcing the ANC caucus in parliament to remove him from office by either impeaching him for alleged violation of the Constitution or by passage of a vote for his dismissal. The first option would have resulted in a complicated legal struggle with no guarantee that Mbeki would be ejected from office before the expiry of his second term; the second would have required a two-thirds majority (which the ANC might not have secured, given the presence within its ranks of a substantial minority of MPs who either still backed Mbeki or were unenthusiastic about Zuma) and would have triggered the dissolution of parliament, forcing an early general election. However, Mbeki chose not to fight, and opted for a dignified resignation. He was replaced as president by the ANC’s deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, Zuma having taken the position that he would not assume office until after the return of the ANC in the forthcoming election.

The mode of Mbeki’s departure from office appeared to reflect his own ultimate loyalty to the movement which he had served all his life. For some of his supporters, however, his ejection from office was an indication that, having lost control of the ANC, they should continue the struggle with Zuma from outside the tent. Zuma’s ANC, it was said in such quarters, was no longer the ANC of Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela. It had lost its purity in power, and had increasingly become a vehicle of corruption and personal ambition. It was therefore now time for the historic values of the liberation movement to be re-affirmed by the formation of a new organisation. Such were the origins of Cope, which took shape during the latter months of 2008 (see Chapter Five).

The ANC thus headed into the 2009 general election campaign with a leader who was still facing manifold charges of corruption, for within weeks the Nicholson judgment had been overturned by the Court of Appeal, and the NPA had resumed Zuma’s prosecution. However, more drama was to follow. Just two weeks before the election, on April 6, after studying new evidence put before the national director of public prosecutions by Zuma’s defence team, he announced a controversial decision to discontinue the criminal proceedings against Zuma on the ground that, as Nicholson had indicated, there had been a criminal conspiracy from within his own organisation to prosecute him which trampled upon his constitutional rights.

Many observers argued that, while Zuma’s legal travails may rightly have been terminated on procedural grounds, the substance of the charges against him remained unproven, and would forever remain a cloud above his head. But it is the victors who rewrite history, and Zuma and his supporters revelled in their triumph, and the ANC entered the last laps of the election campaign with renewed confidence and enthusiasm. In retrospect, however, it has to be remembered that the extent of the ANC’s eventual victory was far more uncertain than the party itself may choose to recall.

Election 2009: a challenge to ANC dominance?

At the outset, there was a widespread feeling that the 2009 election might prove to be a political watershed. Analyses of the three previous democratic general elections had been broadly optimistic. Building upon the euphoria of the ‘founding election’ of 1994, the succeeding contests of 1999 and 2004 were represented as important steps upon the road to democratic consolidation. The broad consensus was that the holding of successive elections which were competently run and ‘free and fair’ indicated a legitimisation of electoral competition as the accepted way of selecting governments. Even so, optimism was qualified by disturbing questions: Was South Africa’s electoral system the most appropriate one, or had the adoption of national list proportional representation minimised the accountability of politicians to their electorate? To what extent was the electoral dominance of the ruling ANC responsible for the undermining of parliament and the subordination of the legislature to the executive? Most of all, was the perception of ‘democratic consolidation’ actually an illusion, for what would the ANC do if it were to meet a serious challenge at the polls? While the ANC might accept electoral results that delivered it overwhelming victories, it could prove less tolerant of unfavourable outcomes.

There was no serious suggestion during the 2009 election campaign that South Africa would have to confront the ‘turnover test’ — the willingness of an incumbent government in a new democracy to hand over power if defeated at the polls — which theorists consider the ultimate test of democratic consolidation. Nonetheless, it was reckoned that this fourth contest would present a major challenge to the country’s democratic ethos. In the previous three elections, the ANC had been confronted by a clutch of opposition parties which, broadly speaking, were fragmented along racial lines, none of them able to match the ruling party’s claim to non-racialism and inclusiveness. However, by 2009 the scene had changed dramatically. On the one hand, the Democratic Alliance (DA), the largest party of opposition, had sought to build upon its reputation for competence by moving away from its historical positioning as a representative primarily of white interests. But more particularly, the ANC was facing a challenge from Cope, a party which had developed out of the bitter struggle within its own ranks.

The launch of Cope challenged the ANC’s claim to be the representative of the true interests of ‘the people’ and appeared to give substance to popular discontents with its rule. Importantly, too, it was widely canvassed that Cope’s emergence would erode the ANC’s political dominance, notably by undercutting its chances of securing the two-thirds majority which would provide it with the unilateral capacity in parliament to amend the Constitution, as well as threatening its rule over key provinces, notably the Western Cape.

The ANC’s reputation as the party that had defeated apartheid provided the foundation for its political dominance and the basis for its impressive performances in the elections of 1994, 1999 and 2004. These had been conducted under a national list system of proportional representation (PR) for the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament. Simultaneous parallel elections had been conducted for the 425 members of unicameral legislatures within all nine provinces, the number of seats in each provincial legislature being proportionate to the number of voters in each province (although there is constitutional provision for the national and individual provincial elections to occur at different times).The particular system of PR used admits no threshold for parties, thereby allowing for the maximum spread of party representation within national and provincial legislatures, offering full expression of racial, religious and political diversity.

The three elections for the Assembly provided the ANC with successively larger majorities: 62.6% in 1994, 66.4% in 1999, and 69.7% in 2004. Inevitably, there were regional variations, albeit revolving around the same theme of overall ANC dominance. The two provinces that deviated significantly were KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape. In the first, a ‘negotiated result’ saw the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) secure 50.3% of the vote in 1994, and hence achieve provincial office, a result which was deemed necessary to secure peace in a region that had featured a bitter war between the IFP and ANC since 1990. Thereafter, the ANC secured a plurality in 1999, and became the senior partner in ANC — IFP coalitions. In the second province, where the Coloured population outnumbers Africans by two to one and whites constitute a sizeable minority, the National Party (NP, soon renamed the New NP or NNP) secured 53.3% of the vote, and assumed provincial power in 1994, before its declining share of the vote (38.4%) saw it forming a coalition with the DP (11.9%) in 1999 to block the ANC (42.1%). Subsequently, a game of musical chairs saw the ANC (45.3%) entering office at the head of a coalition with the NNP (10.9%) to exclude the DA (27.1%) in 2004. In short, the ANC was in sole or predominant control of a minimum of seven out of the nine provinces from 1994.

(Continues…)Excerpted from Zunami! by Roger Southall, John Daniel. Copyright © 2009 The editors and authors. Excerpted by permission of Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd and Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
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