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South Africa

DA impresses with wins in South African municipal elections

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Mmusi Maimane, the new leder of the opposition Democratic Alliance, hopes the promising 2016 municipal elections are a harbinger of greater success in 2019. (Facebook)
Mmusi Maimane, the new leder of the opposition Democratic Alliance, hopes the promising 2016 municipal elections are a harbinger of greater success in 2019. (Facebook)

The problem with South Africa’s opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has always been that it is viewed as a party for wealthy whites — even when its former leader, Helen Zille, was a longtime anti-apartheid journalist. south africa flag

The rap on the DA’s new leader, Mmusi Maimane, is that the 36-year-old was far too inexperienced to navigate the South Africa’s complicated racial politics, long dominated in the post-apartheid era by the African National Congress (ANC). Even under Maimane’s leadership, ANC leaders and others routinely slam the Democratic Alliance, somewhat unfairly, for a ‘legacy of racism.’

But the DA’s success in last week’s municipal elections may force South Africans to reconsider their views both about the party and its young leader. Voters across the country recoiled at the economic malaise, corruption and other shenanigans that have accumulated under Jacob Zuma, the country’s president since 2009, handing several victories to the DA, which fell just shy of winning in Johannesburg, South Africa’s most populous city.

In the May 2014 general election, the Democratic Alliance had its best showing to date, even though it meant winning just 22.23% of the vote nationwide, compared to 62.15% for the ruling ANC. Historically, the DA has managed to attract a wide majority in Western Cape province and in the city of Cape Town, but it has struggled elsewhere in an uphill battle to convince voters to abandon the ANC, the party of Nelson Mandela that’s still synonymous with the end of apartheid.

More than two decades after the ANC came to power, however, unemployment is on the rise, GDP growth has slowed, and Zuma faced a rebuke earlier this spring from South Africa’s top constitutional court, which ordered him to repay some of the $23 million in public funds that Zuma spent to renovate his Nkandla home. One of the much-hyped BRICS economies, South Africa hasn’t achieved GDP growth over 4% since 2007, and growth slowed increasingly in the past three years — the economy is expected to grow by just 0.1% this year.

Election officials confirmed late last week that the Democratic Alliance won in Nelson Mandela Bay, a municipality that includes Port Elizabeth, the largest city of Eastern Cape province.

nelson mandela bay 16

Over the weekend came even more stunning news that the Democratic Alliance narrowly edged out the ANC in Tshwane municipality (which includes Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative and executive capital) and only narrowly lost Johannesburg. Both cities are in Gauteng province, which has been a Maimane target for a while, dating back to his own mayoral run in Johannesburg in 2011.

tshwane16Voters across the country voted on August 3 for municipal councils at several levels of government. The largest prizes include the councils of eight metropolitan municipalities, which include South Africa’s most populous cities.

In addition to Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane and Johannesburg, those eight municipalities also include the DA-controlled Cape Town and four additional councils that the ANC easily retained (including, for example, the eThekwini municipality that includes Durban).
johannesburg 2016The results mean that the DA (in Pretoria and Port Elizabeth) and the ANC (in Johannesburg) will both scramble either to align with the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) or to try to govern with a minority.
Continue reading DA impresses with wins in South African municipal elections →

South Africa

South Africa’s Nkandla scandal finally catches up with Zuma

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South Africa's Constitutional Court has, at long last, ruled that president Jacob Zuma must repay the government for upgrades to his home at Nkandla.
South Africa’s Constitutional Court has, at long last, ruled that president Jacob Zuma must repay the government for upgrades to his home at Nkandla.

Imagine if, as president, George W. Bush diverted $23 million in public funds to improve his ranch in Midland, Texas.south africa flag

Imagine, further, that after a government ruling to reimburse the state treasury for those funds, it took a Supreme Court ruling to force Bush to acknowledge the graft and apologize. That, in essence, is what has happened in South Africa, where years of graft and corruption have caught up with Jacob Zuma, the two-term president and leader of the African National Congress (ANC).

At the end of last week, South Africa’s constitutional court ruled that Zuma violated the country’s constitution in refusing to yield to the findings of a public protector that he should pay back much of those amounts spent to upgrade his Nkandla estate in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal. Zuma and his associates conjured risible explanations for the spending — for example, a magnificent swimming pool was rationalized as a ‘fire pool’ to provide a reservoir of water in case of emergency.

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RELATED: Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk?

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South Africa’s public prosecutor disagreed and, after Zuma refused to heed that decision, the constitutional court disagreed as well. Zuma promptly took to national television to apologize, agreeing that he would, at long last, repay the South African treasury. Though opposition parties have called for Zuma’s impeachment, the ANC’s massive parliamentary majority makes that an unlikely possibility.

Set to step down in 2019, the 73-year-old Zuma is no stranger to controversy. He came to power in 2008 as a bitter enemy of then-president Thabo Mbeki, though even then he was under various ethics clouds, including a sensational rape trial that ended in 2006 (he was ultimately acquitted of the charges). Zuma’s rise meant that power would shift from the Xhosa power base of Mandela and Mbeki, for the first time in post-apartheid South Africa, to Zuma’s own Zulu power base. That, in turn, meant an entirely new set of Zulu elites within the ANC looking for their share of party patronage and the other benefits of power. The excesses of Nkandla epitomize the degree of impunity of ANC officials in the Zuma era.  Continue reading South Africa’s Nkandla scandal finally catches up with Zuma →

South Africa

Maimane, sudden favorite to lead the DA, faces uphill battle

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maimaneattacksPhoto credit to Lulama Zenzile / Foto24.

With four years to go in her second term as premier of Western Cape province, Helen Zille announced Monday that she would not go forward as the leader of South Africa’s opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA).  south africa flag

That opens the way for the DA’s parliamentary leader, Mmusi Maimane, to win the leadership in three weeks’ time at the party congress. If he wins, as is very likely, it will be the first time that a black South African will lead the country’s chief opposition party. It comes at a time when both Maimane and Julius Malema, the leader of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), are making headlines by challenging president Jacob Zuma, whose ruling African National Congress (ANC) has dominated South African politics and governance since the end of apartheid in 1994.

At age 34, Maimane is part of the generation a bit too young to join the resistance struggle against apartheid. Nevertheless, he has consistently outperformed his party as a member of the South African National Assembly from Gauteng — the largest of South Africa’s provinces, and home to both Johannesburg, the country’s largest city, and Pretoria, its capital. In the 2014 election, Maimane won 30.8% of the vote in Gauteng to just 53.6% for the ANC, and also he performed strongly in the 2011 Johannesburg mayoral election. Strong performances alone, however, that boost the DA’s support to the 30% threshold, will not create a true two-party system in South Africa.

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RELATED: Who is Mmusi Maimane?
Possibly the next premier of Gauteng.

RELATED: Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk?

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In contrast to ANC propaganda that sharply denounces the Democratic Alliance as a white-dominated vehicle for post-colonial oppression, Zille was a celebrated journalist who worked to uncover the injustices of minority rule in South Africa during the 1980s and 1990s. In 2004, the Democratic Alliance won just 12.4% of the popular vote. After Zille took control of the leadership, the party won control of Western Cape province and increased the DA’s national share of the vote to 22.2% in the May 2014 general election. Nevertheless, when the ANC, under Zuma’s weak leadership, can still command over 62% of the vote, it’s clear that there’s a ceiling to the support that a party led by a white South African will command in a country where the racial nature of politics runs deep.

That doesn’t mean that Maimane’s probable ascension as the party’s next leader will solve the party’s image problem, and Maimane might be well-advised to rename and rebrand the party as his first priority if elected as its next leader. Even under the best conditions possible for the Democratic Alliance, it’s inconceivable to believe that the ANC will be dislodged in the next election in 2019 or even perhaps the 2024 election. But Maimane, whose father grew up in the notorious Soweto slum, can present a fresh contrast to an increasingly geriatric ruling class. Zuma will be 77 when his second term ends. His most likely successor, vice president Cyril Ramaphosa, is currently 62 years old, and he first seriously contested the ANC’s leadership in the late 1990s, when Thabo Mbeki edged him out for the opportunity to succeed Nelson Mandela.  Continue reading Maimane, sudden favorite to lead the DA, faces uphill battle →

South Africa

South Africa votes in 5th post-apartheid election: what you need to know

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World Bank, South Africa 2007.

South Africans go to the polls for the fifth time in the post-apartheid era today in a race that the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the liberation movement that forced the end of minority white rule in 1994, is nearly guaranteed to win.south africa flag

South Africans will elect all 400 members of the National Assembly, by proportional representation on a closed-list basis (which may explain, in part, the hierarchical party strength of ANC governance). They will also elect governments in South Africa’s nine provinces.

Here’s the current breakdown:

SANatlAssmly

Notably, it’s the first election that will feature the ‘born-frees,’ the generation of South Africans who were born after the end of apartheid rule. Though they’re only 2.5% of the electorate today, they’ll become an increasingly vital demographic, and they might well change the face of South African politics over the next decade.

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RELATED: Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk? 

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Jacob Zuma, the president since 2009, is leading the ANC campaign, despite his relative unpopularity as South Africans face dwindling economic growth, rising unemployment and the sense that the ANC is more interested in maintaining — and abusing — power than attending to the pressing policy concerns of most South Africans. Zuma’s spending on ‘security improvements’ to his home at Nkandla has captured the widespread disgust of much of the electorate. His government’s handling of a mining strike at Marikana two years ago ended with a clash with police that killed 44 people in the worst state-sponsored violence since the apartheid era. The fallout has severely strained the so-called tripartite alliance among the ANC, the Communist Party of South Africa and the Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU).

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RELATED: Zuma is strongest president on HIV/AIDS in South African history

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Notwithstanding those concerns, the ANC is almost assured of victory, thanks to its role as the liberation movement that ended apartheid under the mythic leadership of former president Nelson Mandela, who died late last December. The biggest question is whether the ANC will achieve the support of at least two-thirds of the electorate — it could win just 60% (or even less) of the vote.

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RELATED: How Nelson Mandela’s death provides South Africa a challenge and an opportunity

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The chief opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), seems set to increase its support to a historically high level, possibly more than 20% or even 25%. Continue reading South Africa votes in 5th post-apartheid election: what you need to know →

South Africa

Who is Mmusi Maimane? (Possibly the next premier of Gauteng).

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Mmusi+Maimane+XXX

While left-wing populists like Julius Malema have received much more attention internationally as South Africa prepares for its national elections on May 7, Mmusi Maimane is the rising star to whom the rest of the world should be paying attention.south africa flag

He’s quickly becoming one of the chief spokespersons for the Democratic Alliance (DA), the largest opposition party in South Africa. Although polls show that the DA will nonetheless lose next month’s elections by a massive margin to the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the DA hopes to build on its gains from 2004 and 2009 to win its greatest level of voter support yet. 

In Gauteng, the economic and financial hub of South Africa, and the most populous province in the country with 12.25 million people, Maimane is campaigning hard to become Gauteng’s next premier in one of nine provincial elections that are taking place simultaneously with national elections.

Maimane (like a growing number of world politicians) has been compared to Barack Obama for his quick rise, youthful image and the liberal use of the Obama playbook in his campaign for premier. In 2011, he ran for mayor of Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city, and he wound up as the opposition leader of the city council. At 33, he’s waging a credible campaign against the ANC, anchored with a pledge to sort legal title for over 200,000 urban South Africans who have only informal ownership of their homes.

Critics in the ANC charge that he’s a convenient black face for a party that draws support predominantly from the white community in South Africa. But as the DA’s support grows, and voters become disenchanted with the ANC, especially the so-called ‘born-frees,’ the emerging class of young voters who never lived under apartheid, voting patterns are slowly changing. If Maimane leads the DA to victory in Gauteng — or even wages a sufficiently tight race — he’ll easily become the party’s dominant figure.

He’s capitalized on the ANC’s unpopularity in several regards — police brutality deployed against miners during a strike in Marikana a couple of years ago, pervasive corruption that’s now highlighted by $23.5 million in state spending for ‘security improvements’ to president Jacob Zuma’s home in Nkandla, and pervasive unemployment among South Africa’s young, urban, black population.

Here’s an ad from last month that went viral after South Africa’s government tried to ban it from the airwaves — it shows just how damning the anti-Zuma and anti-ANC message has become:

It also helps that the ANC in Gauteng is divided by rival factions — that’s why the incumbent, Nomvula Mokonyane, doesn’t seem to be running for reelection, and the provincial secretary general David Makhura is leading the ANC campaign, even though the ANC hasn’t formally announced a candidate for premier.

Dali Mpofu, a longtime ANC politician — who once allegedly had an affair with Winnie Mandela in the 1990s — left the ANC to join Malema’s socialist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in November 2013, and is leading the EFF’s efforts as its premier candidate in Gauteng. That, too, could pull votes away from the ANC, much to Maimane’s benefit.

Given those dynamics, and given Maimane’s serious policy proposals and considerable political talent, it’s a puzzler why Maimane isn’t the overwhelming favorite in the race.

Some of the answer lies in the wariness of South African voters to turn away from the ANC, which still looms mythically for its role in ending white apartheid rule 20 years ago.

In 2009, the Democratic Alliance won 16.66% of the vote and increased its representation in the 400-member National Assembly from 47 to 67, and it won control of the Western Cape province. Polls show that the Democratic Alliance will win between 20% and 25% this time around. The DA is expected to retain control in Western Cape (where the DA’s leader Helen Zille, a white former Cape Town mayor and former journalist and anti-apartheid activist, serves as premier). It will also contest for control of Northern Cape province as well.  Continue reading Who is Mmusi Maimane? (Possibly the next premier of Gauteng). →

South Africa

Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk?

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cyril-ramaphosa-and-jacob-zuma-create-south-africa-s-politcal-team-photodpa_0.

No one doubts that the African National Congress (ANC) will win South Africa’s parliamentary elections on May 7, extending its political hold on the country since the end of apartheid in 1994 and the election of the ANC’s Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s first non-white president.south africa flag

Twenty years later, South Africans are going to the polls for the first time following Mandela’s death late last year, and the chief opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will be satisfied if it can make further gains, consolidating its hold on Western Cape province, where the DA’s leader Helen Zille serves as premier, appealing to voters in Northern Cape and Eastern Cape, and growing its presence in Gauteng under the leadership of rising star Mmusi Maimane, currently a member of the Johannesburg city council.

But even if the ANC wins with over 60% of the vote, the same level of support as it has generally attracted in the past three elections, South Africa’s ruling structure will enter its third consecutive decade in power exceedingly unpopular, increasingly divided and with no clear path of transition to a compelling successor to the 71-year-old Zuma (pictured above, right, with deputy ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa).

As Zuma is term-limited as South Africa’s president (the president is elected shortly after parliamentary elections, so the ANC’s dominance will all but assuredly result in Zuma’s reelection later in May or June), he’ll enter his second term as a lame duck with nagging controversies over mismanagement and corruption.

What’s more, the ANC will elect a new leader in 2017 — meaning that, unless Zuma tries to hold onto the party leadership, the ANC will determine the individual who could lead South Africa from 2019 to 2029 within the next three-year window. Though posturing for the 2017 contest is well under way, if quietly, too few ANC leaders are talking about how to revitalize the ANC for a new generation of issues and policy challenges.

Policy and governance woes

Over the past five years, South Africa’s once-booming economy has slowed. Continue reading Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk? →

South Africa

DA announces Ramphele to lead South African campaign

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ramphele

In a move designed to maximize the opposition to South African president Jacob Zuma, Mamphela Ramphele will join the Democratic Alliance (DA) to contest the spring elections as its presidential candidate. south africa flag

That will pit Ramphele (pictured above), the widow of one of South Africa’s most well-known anti-apartheid fighters in the 1980s, directly against Zuma, who leads the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

Ramphele founded AgangSA, (‘Agang’ means ‘to build’ in the Northern Sotho language) in February 2013 as a center-left alternative to the ruling ANC.  Little did she know at the time that she would ultimately lead South Africa’s main opposition party into this spring’s parliamentary elections.  Voters, sometime in April or May, will elect the 400 members of the National Assembly, the lower house of the South African parliament, which will indirectly elect South Africa’s president.  Zuma’s ANC currently holds 264 seats, and it’s still expected to win the next elections, which means that Zuma — for now — remains an almost certainty for reelection.

zillemamphele

Ramphele’s decision to join forces with the Democratic Alliance is a strategic gain for the party, whose leader is Helen Zille (pictured above, yesterday, with Ramphele), the premier of Western Cape province and former mayor of Cape Town.  Under Zille’s leadership, the Democratic Alliance has made steady, if slow gains.  It won 16.66% and 67 seats in the April 2009 elections, its best-ever national result.  In the May 2011 municipal elections, it won 23.9% of the national vote and started to gain more notice in South Africa’s top urban areas.

Though Zille, a former anti-apartheid activist and journalist, already seemed set to improve on her 2009 and 2011 performances, her union with Ramphele gives South Africa’s opposition hope that it really might find a way to break open the ANC’s two-decade lock on power. Continue reading DA announces Ramphele to lead South African campaign →