by Weizmann Hamilton<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2019 general elections will be seen, in\ntime, as the most important since the advent of democracy. For the first time since 1994, less than half\nof the voting age population cast their ballots. There are 35.8 million\neligible voters. Of these 26.8 million are on the voters roll. In other words\napproximately 9 million are not registered. Only 65.9% of registered voters\nwent to the polls. That means that a\nfull 18 million (9 million unregistered plus 9 million registered non-voters) did\nnot to vote. In addition there were a quarter-of-a-million spoilt ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All 14 parties\nthat managed to get seats are in parliament with the active electoral support\nof only 49.8% of the voting age population. This represents if not a resounding\nrejection of the entire political establishment, then at least a profound\ndisillusionment with it. Had the non-voters all voted for a single different\nparty, their vote would have exceeded those of all 48 parties who contested\nthese elections combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This should form\nthe basis for an analysis of the actual votes cast and their distribution\namongst the parties. The post election\nnarrative has been dominated by the ANC and DA\u2019s losses on the one hand, and\nthe EFF\u2019s gains on the other. Whilst the two main parties of capital are in mourning\nover their results, the EFF is celebrating. In reality the message sent by the\nmasses in these elections is essentially the same for all parties \u2013 that not\none of them inspires hope of a solution to the country\u2019s deep economic, social\nand political crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ANC<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The ANC\u2019s 10 million\nvotes may still seem impressive as a number especially by comparison to their\nnearest rival, the DA, a full 37% behind. Following the ANC\u2019s 62% vote in 2014,\nthen ANC secretary general secretary, Gwede Mantashe, bemoaned the reaction to\nthe ANC vote. In any other country, 62% would have been seen as a landslide; in\nSA it is regarded as a defeat he bleated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But it is the direction in which the arrow is\npointing for both the ruling ANC\u2019s and the official opposition DA\u2019s electoral\nfortunes that is the key question. The ruling ANC\u2019s vote fell below 60%,\nto 57% – its lowest vote since 1994. In absolute numbers the ANC\u2019s lost 1.4 million votes, 19 parliamentary seats,\nfrom the 11 million votes and 249 seats they won in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More ominously for the\nANC\u2019s future, it held on to control of Gauteng, the country\u2019s economic hub and\nmost populous province, by the skin of its teeth, securing a mere 50.1%. The loss of Gauteng, the province carrying\nthe greatest political specific weight, would have felt like a defeat. It would\nhave placed on the near horizon, as soon as the next local government elections\nin 2021, and almost certainly in the next general elections in 2024, the\nlikelihood of the ANC\u2019s national vote falling below 50%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This disconnect\nfrom political reality revealed in Mantashe\u2019s 2014 remarks, were strikingly\nabsent in the ANC leadership\u2019s reaction to its 2019 results. Sunday Times <\/em>columnist Ranjeni Munusamy(19\/05\/19) reports that \u201cRamaphosa\narrived at the election results ceremony on 11 May looking like his dog had\ndied rather than the person who had just rescued his party from having to share\npower in order to govern.\u201d As if awakened from a nightmare in which they had\nseen the spectre of defeat, the ANC leadership wiped the sweat off of their\ncollective forehead. The necessity for coalition government involving the hated\nDA and the feared EFF had been avoided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ANC Head of Elections, Fikile Mbalula expressed the entire\nleadership\u2019s sigh of relief with the statement that, without Cyril Ramaphosa as\nits presidential candidate, the ANC would have fallen to as low as 40%. That\nANC secretary general Ace Magashule took advantage of this probable\nexaggeration of the extent to which the ANC vote might have fallen, found it necessary\nto contradict Mbalula publicly, is a case of protesting too much. A miss would\nhave been as good as a mile whether it would have been 40% or 49.9%. Even the\nmost boneheaded of Zuma loyalists like Ace\u2019s deputy, Jesse Duarte, was\ncompelled to acknowledge that the voters had given the ANC a stern\nwarning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the election campaign, Ramaphosa had polled\nconsistently higher than his own party. This is what most likely accounts for\none of many significant features of these elections: that ANC voters split\ntheir ballots between provincial and national. The ANC lost votes in every\nsingle province as its voters cast their ballots for other parties there, but\nfor the ANC nationally. These elections were conducted in this sense as a\nvirtual presidential poll. Far more popular as an individual leader than his\nown party, Ramaphosa was able to act as locomotive to drag the ANC across the\nline to once more be able to form a government on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These results confirmed the trend, evident since 2009, but underlined\nespecially by the ANC\u2019s electoral decline in the 2016 local government\nelections, when its national tally fell from the 62% in the 2014 general\nelections to 54%. Most dramatically, it lost control of three metros \u2013\nJohannesburg, Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane, leaving it out of power in four out\nof the country\u2019s eight metros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just how fortunate the ANC was to emerge with the biggest\nvote is underlined by the fact that Ramaphosa\u2019s accession to the presidency of\nthe country was made possible by his victory at the ANC\u2019s 54th<\/sup>\nelective conference in 2018 by the razor-thin margin of 179 votes. Those 179\nvotes are widely accepted as having been\ngifted to him by then Mpumalanga provincial premier and now the country\u2019s\ndeputy president, David Mabuza, in a last-minute\nbetrayal of his pro-Zuma allies in the so-called Premier League of corrupt ANC\nprovincial barons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Those 179 votes are worth, in hindsight, the 7.6% that\nassured the ANC victory. But for Mabuza\u2019s double cross, the ANC would have\nfaced almost certain defeat under Zuma\u2019s anointed successor, his ex-wife,\nNkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. The ANC did not so much win these elections as survive\nthem. The ANC\u2019s results show that its political capital as the party of\nliberation is close to exhaustion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Democratic Alliance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The DA has held on to its position as the official\nopposition despite its decline from 22% in 2014 to 20% in 2019. But as we pointed\nout after the 2016 local government elections, the DA\u2019s 2014 results represented\nan electoral ceiling. Believing its own\npropaganda, the DA portrayed its control of the metros of the commercial\ncapital Johannesburg, the political capital Tshwane (Pretoria) and the\npolitically symbolic Nelson Mandel Bay, giving it control, alongside Cape Town\nof half of the country\u2019s most important metros, as sign of momentum. They set\nthemselves the target of taking over the province of Gauteng and possibly the\nNorthern Cape. But in 2019 they failed to extend their provincial electoral\npower beyond the Western Cape benefitting even there from the ANC\u2019s chronic\nelectoral crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The reality is that they took control of the three\nadditional metros through a deal with the EFF in what was in fact a coalition\nof losers. The DA has paid a heavy price for a deal that is seen as one in which\nit traded its \u201canti-corruption clean government\u201d claims for the trappings of\noffice with the EFF, a party with a corrupt leadership who installed DA mayors\nfor access to lucrative local government tenders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The DA\u2019s hypocrisy in stridently denouncing the highly\nemotive policy of expropriation of land without compensation (EWC) that the EFF\nhas forced on the ANC as official government policy, drained it of credibility\nin the eyes of white voters, fearing that EWC would result in land\nexpropriation. Astonishingly, one of the DA\u2019s election slogans was \u201cVote DA to\nstop the EFF and the ANC\u201d! DA voters deserted the party, voting instead for the\nwhite nationalist right wing Freedom Front+ whose promises to defend their land\nrang much more true. The appearance of momentum towards their target of 30% of\nthe national vote in 2019, translated instead to 20%, not only 10% short of its\nambitions, but also the first electoral decline since 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This result has dealt a body blow to the DA\u2019s ambitions to\nbe an electoral alternative to the ANC as the main party of capital. Its\nelectoral decline has plunged the party into a leadership crisis as this loss occurred\nunder the watch of its first black leader, Mmusi Maimane. A vacuous individual\nunable to shake off the impression that he is a black puppet of a white\ncontrolled party, Maimane\u2019s installation as leader after the 2014 elections\nfailed to attract black voters, its tally increasing by a miserable 0.4%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The EFF<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The EFF is of\ncourse triumphantly portraying its increase from 6% in 2014 to 10% in 2019. Its\n1.8 million votes have boosted its seats to 44 from 25 in 2014 when it first\ncontested. It is now the official\nopposition in three provinces usually dominated by the ANC, namely North West,\nMpumalanga and Limpopo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A closer\nexamination of the EFF\u2019s votes, however, shows its 700,000 increase does not\ntranslate into momentum. It may have doubled its percentage compared to 2014,\nbut it is up from 2016 by only 2 percentage points. Even in those provinces\nwhere it is now the official opposition, it is not in a position to form a\ncoalition with other opposition parties despite the ANC\u2019s decline. The EFF has\nbenefitted much more from the ANC\u2019s electoral travails than its own momentum. In\nan election where ANC voters continued, as they did in 2014, and 2016, to vote\nfor opposition parties not out of conviction but to punish the ANC, the EFF has\nbeen in the hands of many voters no more than a whip to beat the ruling party than\nas a serious alternative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Portrayed as the\nparty of the youth, it has failed to enthuse the youth to register or, if they\nwere registered, to vote. 6\nmillion voters under the age of 30 did not vote. Statistics SA puts the total\neligible voters aged 18-19, at 1.8 million. But just 341,186 \u2014 19% \u2014 registered\nfor the election. The impact of the astounding corruption allegations against the\nEFF leadership revealed in the run up to the elections, especially in the\nindustrial scale looting of municipalities through the Venda Building Society,\nhave yet to be felt. The prosecutions that will follow under Ramaphosa\u2019s\nclean-up campaign, will erode the EFF\u2019s votes in the future. The EFF\u2019s election\nmanifesto revealed a marked shift to the right in an increasingly pro-capitalist\ndirection that has attracted the cautious welcome of capitalist commentators.\nThe EFF\u2019s announcement of its willingness to enter into coalitions with the\nmajor parties, will come to haunt it in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2019 elections have confirmed what WASP has pointed\nout before: that there is a simultaneous crisis of political representation for\nboth the ruling class as well as the working class. The ANC\u2019s factional civil\nwar is poised to intensify in the ANC government\u2019s 6th<\/sup> term.\nRamaphosa, who benefitted from unprecedented levels of capitalist media support\nboth in SA and internationally, can continue his anti-corruption crusade only\nby further inflaming factional tensions that hardly abated during the election\ncampaign. At stake for the Zuma faction is imprisonment for corruption. As\nZuma\u2019s defiant insistence that he has done nothing wrong, as he faces\nreinstated corruption charges shows, his faction will not resign themselves to\ntheir fate without a fight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The ANC\u2019s 57% is probably just enough to enable Ramaphosa\nto be portrayed as the first ANC leader to reverse its fifteen year electoral\ndecline, raising its vote from the 2016 54% vote. This as well as the measures\nhe has taken to dismiss corrupt ministers before the elections, the\nstrengthening of state institutions by\nthe appointment of untainted individuals, the setting up of multiple\ncommissions of inquiry into corruption that enjoyed wall to wall live coverage\nin the media, has given him the upper hand in the factional struggle… for now.\nBut the hostilities in the factional war of attrition will continue in the form\nof \u201clawfare\u201d as investigations and possible prosecutions maintain the lines of\ndivision. The referral of the ANC\u2019s list of parliamentary candidates back to\nthe Integrity Commission after it had been compiled by the branches, is but one\nof the arenas over which factional clashes will break out. Already, following\nthe integrity Commission\u2019s recommendations that those implicated in corruption\nshould recuse themselves, has led to deputy president designate Mabuza\nrequesting that his swearing in be delayed pending and appearance before it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the Zuma faction\u2019s hands are stayed at present,\nrumours persist that they intend recalling him at the ANC\u2019s National General\nCouncil (the highest decision making bodies in between conferences) next year,\nor at its next conference in 2022. Such an attempt, though unlikely, would in all likelihood split the ANC. Ramaphosa\u2019s\nsecurity of presidential tenure thus depends on the fear of mutually assured\ndestruction of the ANC that would follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is for this reason that the more far sighted\nstrategists, exasperated at the crass incompetence of the entire DA leadership,\nhave urged it to change its focus from Ramaphosa and the ANC in favour of preparing\nitself to be a responsible partner in a future government of national unity with\nthe ANC to save capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SRWP<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n These elections\nhave confirmed at the same time the enormous crisis of leadership for the\nworking class. This was accentuated by the dismal performance of the Socialist\nRevolutionary Workers Party led by National Union of Metal Workers of SA\n(Numsa) secretary general, Ivin Jim. Erasing form history WASP\u2019s contestation\nof the 2014 elections, it claimed to be\nthe first genuine \u201drevolutionary socialist\u201d \nparty to contest elections in SA. Supported by a myriad of small left\nforces and individuals, who spent far too much attacking WASP as \u201creformist\u201d, as\nwell as left-of centre media commentators, they swallowed their own propaganda\nabout its base in the 300 000 Numsa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its 24 000 votes,\na mere 4000 votes higher than its probably inflated 20 000 membership claims, after\na campaign funded by American Carribean billionaire Roy Singham (funder of one\nof India\u2019s \u201cCommunist\u201d parties) was a humiliation. Far more importantly, it was\nan emphatic rejection of a party that campaigned in the name of Numsa, by Numsa\nmembers themselves. That they believed that the usurpation of the union\u2019s name\nwould guarantee them the votes of its members is itself a reflection of a\ncontemptuous attitude towards the working class. This, the Numsa members have\nstated emphatically, is not the party they had in mind when they\nconvened a special national congress in 2013 and resolved to create a workers\nparty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Predictably the\nleadership has blamed the immaturity of the working class which \u201cwas not ready\u201d.\nThey have made derisory claims of vote rigging, joining a chorus of such\nreactionary outfits like Black First Land First in doing so. WASP called for a critical vote for the SRWP not\nout of any illusions in this neo-Stalinist party, but to diminish the vote of\nthe capitalist parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Offensive being prepared against the working\nclass<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The once mighty\nbut now thoroughly emasculated Congress of SA Trade Unions, to its eternal\nshame, alongside the SACP, is supporting the billionaire \u2018butcher of Marikana\u2019.\nCosatu denounced the general strike Saftu called on 25 April last year, to\noppose legislation aimed at crippling the right to strike and picket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ramaphosa\u2019s\naccession to the presidency represents the fulfillment of a childhood dream for\nhim personally. But his tenure will turn into a nightmare. He comes to power\nagainst the background of the worst economic crisis in the post-apartheid\nperiod. An unreconstructed neo-liberal capitalist, and darling of capital in SA\nand internationally, he is poised to intensify the class war against the\nworking class starting with raising VAT for the first time since the end of\napartheid even before the elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After years of\nprevarication, the ANC has now decided to bite the bullet of privatisation of\nEskom (the biggest electricity entity in the world) and, in the words of\ncapitalist analysts baying for the blood of the \u201cbloated public sector\u201d\nworkers, to \u201cslay the dragon\u201d of the public sector wage bill with plans to\nretrench over 30,000 workers. A number of unions, including Numsa are facing increasing\nhostile scrutiny by the Registrar of the Department of Labour. The Association\nof Mining and Construction Union that came to prominence after the mass exodus\nof mineworkers from the National Union of Mineworkers in the wake of the\nMarikana massacre is facing threats of deregistration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ramaphosa comes to power at a time when strikes are at the\nhighest levels since Department of Labour records began. Service delivery\nprotests have made SA the protest capital in the world with the highest number\nof protest per capital globally. Protest continued throughout the entire\nelection, escalating as polling day approached including on Election Day itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The economy shall have barely avoided a recession in the\nfirst half of 2019, but faces growth prospects of no more than 0.8% year on\nyear, the same level as 2018. The 5.4% per annual growth required for ten years\nconsecutively calculated by the National Development Plan Commission Ramaphosa\nhimself chaired, merely to eradicate extreme poverty, is a pipe dream. The savage\nausterity demanded by the rating agencies will only aggravate an already dire\nsituation with unemployment edging towards 10 million (40%) in what the World\nBank has officially designated the most unequal society on the planet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Towards a mass workers party on a socialist\nprogramme<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The real mood of the masses was reflected amongst both\nthose who voted and those which did not, is reflected in these protests and\nstrikes; whether by staying away from the polls or casting their vote their\n\u201cvote\u201d amounted \u201cnone of the above\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is now a year since the labour movement took potentially\nits most important stride forward in the post-apartheid era through the Working\nClass Summit convened by the SA Federation of Trade Unions in May 2018. It\nbrought together over a thousand delegates representing 147 community\norganisations, trade union affiliates and student groupings. It adopted a\nresolution to establish a mass workers party on a socialist programme. WASP\nplayed an important role in making this possible and will throw its energy into\nremedying its organisational, ideological and political weaknesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These elections reflect the urgent need for such a party to\nunify the working class around a common platform and programme of action across\nall the main theaters of struggle in the workplace, communities, and education\ninstitutions. Thrust onto its agenda immediately\nis the offensive the Ramaphosa administration has signaled. It must be a party\nof mass action which all left formations must support placing their programmes\nand ideological positions to the masses for them to evaluate and test in\naction. This will be the best tribute that can be paid to the immortal martyrs\nof Marikana who paid in blood to lay the foundations for the reclamation of the\nproletariat\u2019s class and political independence \u2013 the creation of a mass workers\nparty on a socialist programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2019 general elections will be seen, in time, as the most important since the advent of democracy. For the first time since 1994, less than half of the voting age population cast their ballots. There are 35.8 million eligible voters. Of these 26.8 million are on the voters roll. In other words approximately 9 million are not registered. Only 65.9% of registered voters went to the polls. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comment","post_format-post-format-aside"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marxistworkersparty.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}