A little more than a month ago I firmly proclaimed on LitNet that local level service delivery issues could be unusually prominent in South Africa’s forthcoming national and provincial elections. This may still be so, as there is much scepticism about promised reduced loadshedding, some sort of cleaning up of streets, and ribbons galore in the background as cabinet members announce new social support mechanisms, and housing and infrastructure schemes pop up. But suddenly the agenda has become denser and more complex. International issues, bad old South African racial politics, and opportunistic political engineering have all made an appearance. So let’s pinpoint some of the key issues.
1. Service delivery: a few samples
Many domestic issues offer fertile ground for opposition parties, of which there have been many more than ever in South African history. Some of the many fresh faces on the political stage are quite off the wall, but most have gained from the multiple problems that they attribute mainly to the ANC.
The current major opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has a strong storyline around its undeniably better service delivery record. Several observers concur that although the DA might not quite get a majority in parliament and in more provincial legislatures than before, it seemed – or perhaps still seems – well positioned for being an attractive coalition partner, deserving of other parties’ support, to get a crack at running the country. There is fair recognition that the DA may have done well on service delivery, but its critics blame it for not matching its service delivery track record in middle-class areas in the township and other poor areas. This being in South Africa, an intrinsic assumption behind this criticism is that inadequate service delivery in the Western Cape, where the DA has ruled, remains largely linked to racial divisions, so that one would find that services in poorer areas fall far behind the established, mainly privileged areas, which also remain populated mainly by white people.
Hence a fresh-face party like Rise Mzansi has attracted considerable interest in the build-up to the elections, now being seen as a possible full-fledged alternative to the DA and the ANC, or at least as the beginning of a more constructive shift in the way South Africans do politics, rather than the ethnically driven politics of anger of the Malema-led Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Jacob Zuma’s MK party. The proliferation of parties may well enhance a trend in this election towards what one could call “strategic voting”, eg voting for Rise Mzansi or Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA at national level to make a dent in ANC support there, or asserting specific cultural or economic interests, like the Freedom Front Plus, but at provincial level for a bigger party – likely the DA – that has a firmer record of managing services and infrastructure. Whether such choices actually exist may often be in the eye of the beholder, but it at least introduces an attempt by voters to make considered, strategic choices.
But let’s highlight a few key issues that may influence voters’ choices.
> Infrastructure service delivery. Given the state of the nation, voters are indeed likely to use the election to express their frustrations about all services, whether national and provincial, or municipal. One could reasonably imagine, therefore, that the government would have pushed very hard to show progress in these service sectors as a part of their election strategies.
In all fairness, though, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, the minister in the presidency responsible for electricity, has been clear that it cannot be assumed that loadshedding is over, and that stable service delivery cannot be taken for granted. Government may benefit, however, from private companies already having invested in their own facilities to mitigate the risks of Eskom’s failing, which may continue curbing economic investments and job creation in the broader economy, with particular risk to households and smaller and informal businesses that cannot afford such back-up options.
> Water and sanitation services deteriorated immensely between 2015 and 2020, after appearing for the first two post-apartheid decades to be a promising story, with a high rate of household access to tap water, and an innovative pro-poor policy and progressively improving delivery of 25 litres per person per day. The stories of eThekwini and Johannesburg were internationally cited as good practice examples of clear assignment of roles, whether through municipal departments or by contracted private providers. Access to sanitation improved as well from 2002, when less than two thirds of urban South African households had access to “improved” sanitation facilities, to 82 percent by 2017.
There were signs of this dropping since the mid-2010s, though, so that the current national Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) felt compelled to start new sector reform initiatives shortly after taking office in 2002. It reintroduced regulatory monitoring reports (Blue Drop for water and Green Drop for sanitation in 2023), which sector professionals and critics have welcomed as a critical regulatory intervention as basis for service delivery recovery and improvement. Currently, municipalities still owe billions of rand to water boards and the DWS, and the recent regulatory reports also highlighted non-compliance levels of over 70 percent by municipalities. Municipal accountability and governance within local government remain serious concerns.
> In the transport sector, mismanagement and corruption issues in Transnet have not yet been resolved, with major implications for freight management, but importantly, too, for poorer citizens who may barely be able to travel to work, or who continue to be dependent on the worsening, often dangerous, mini-taxi industry. While the security of passengers and goods remains vulnerable to crime, the decaying transport sector remains an economic risk to the country, and a political risk to national and sub-national governments.
> The housing crisis may especially affect the governing parties – the ANC in most provinces and nationally, and the DA in the Western Cape – albeit that none of the other parties had much space to influence it. In the 1990s almost five million households benefited from public housing in the wake of the political transition, but delivery has slowed down since. Whereas in the first five years of democracy public housing increased by over 200 000 units per year, this had declined to around 30 000 units by 2022–23. Policy makers and technical experts may justifiably point to Covid as a major recent cause of this slowdown, but affected voters may not show too much understanding, and perhaps even less so in a year in which quite a few more substantial parties have entered the fray.
> The education system is also in crisis. A Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) analysis found that that significant improvements were made in learning outcomes from the 2000s to the mid-2010s, but that in the last five years there have been very concerning problems: In 2021, after a year of school, more than 50 percent of grade 1 learners did not know all the letters in the alphabet; in 2016 (the last time these tests occurred) 78 percent of grade 4 learners could not read for meaning, in any language; in 2019, 62 percent of grade 5 learners did not have basic mathematical knowledge. The Covid lockdowns had had further severely negative effects on learning, knowledge acquisition and understanding – for example, the average 10-year-old now knows less than the average 9-year-old before Covid.
2. “Big” politics: foreign policy and international alliances
As the election campaigns progressed, the political environment became more complicated, with South Africa’s international alliances an area of contention.
> South Africa’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine war has been a major bone of contention domestically. The electorate has been divided over what many see as the government’s pro-Russia stance on the war and its leanings towards its BRICS partners, especially China and Russia.
These dynamics clearly shifted in the course of the Ramaphosa presidency. While the Western powers have been viewed with scepticism by the ANC and other liberation groupings, South Africa’s relationships with them seemed to gain traction when Ramaphosa was invited to key G20 meetings in the period immediate after he had assumed the presidency. When he became the first leader from a developing country to be invited to an official meeting with King Charles III, it seemed a clear sign of South Africa’s significance to the UK – and implicitly to Western governments more widely. Foreign minister Naledi Pandor similarly was quite prominently featured in the UN and the USA. However, South Africa’s ambivalent stance towards the Russia-Ukraine conflict did not exactly attract Western support.
These tensions were deepened by the controversial Lady R incident when the US ambassador alleged that arms, munitions, propellants and technology of military use were shipped from the naval base in Simon’s Town to Russia on the Russian ship the Lady R. A confidential South African government report found that there was no shipment of military goods or equipment to Russia, and although the USA eventually let things rest, the incident has not been helpful for South Africa’s relationships with the USA and its Western allies. It is unlikely, though, to be a major bone of contention in the elections, as South African voters tend to be more concerned about local issues than the wider global political landscape.
The same cannot be said about the current Middle East conflict, as discussed below.
> The Gaza-Israel conflict has proved to be one of those big, paradigm-shifting moments and tragedies in world history, sparking many global tensions and recriminations. The horrifying October 2023 Hamas attacks and kidnappings of well over 1 000 Israeli civilians and soldiers spurred Israel’s most severe military responses ever, with (by today) over 35 000 Gaza residents killed and almost 80 000 wounded and injured. This has invited considerable global concerns, even among Israel’s major international allies, and probably among South African voters as well.
For South Africa the first decisive moment came when the government decided to take the lead internationally in taking Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and has subsequently sustained high-profile stances on the matter, including diplomatic recriminations against Israel. The Middle East developments now seem likely to have an impact on the forthcoming elections, especially since the DA – the biggest opposition party – initially quite strongly led criticism of government’s positioning. Its internal party dynamics were also affected, most prominently when the party leader dismissed a member of the DA’s shadow cabinet, Ghaleb Cachalia, after he had expressed sympathy for the people of Gaza and prominently criticised Israel.
The DA has since explained that it supports a two-state solution and declared itself neutral on the matter. It is as yet unclear to what extent this might have alienated South African Muslims, but the DA certainly has stirred up stern criticism for not outright condemning Israel’s actions, and is at risk of some vote losses as a result. It could affect its national prospects, but the most significant implications could arise in the DA’s stronghold, the Western Cape, where a substantial section of voters are of the Muslim faith. It is as yet unclear to what extent the DA’s stance on the conflict will affect its support in the province, but it may well face some swing away.
Somewhat unusually for South Africa, therefore, international issues may well have bigger implications for the results of our national and provincial elections. But if past trends are considered, domestic issues will ultimately determine the election outcomes at both the national and provincial levels. So far, poll predictions have varied massively, however, so one needs to be a seasoned risk taker to venture towards any bets.
Chris Heymans
Independent political economy advisor
See also:
Are we heading for a service delivery election? A water and sanitation perspective
Bedrieër poog glo om die verkiesing met WhatsApp te beïnvloed
Verkiesing 2024: 10 onderliggende veranderlikes van besondere belang
Duisende Suid-Afrikaners in die buiteland stem op 17 en 18 Mei
Oorsig ‒ Jakes Gerwel-gesprek (Suidoosterfees 2024): Wie gaan Suid-Afrika ná 29 Mei regeer?
Hoe sal koalisieregerings ná die verkiesing provinsiaal en nasionaal kan werk of misluk?
’n Nuwe stryd om die hart en siel van die Kaap van Goeie Hoop
Die effek van marginaal- en hibriedwees op die bruin politieke landskap
Bruin wees in hierdie tyd: repliek op Jason Lloyd se artikel
Election 2024: the Economic Freedom Fighters’ election manifesto
Dié "politieke skelm" moet in 2024 deur die kiesers aan die kaak gestel word
Kommentaar
Good analysis, but be careful about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Privatisation may not be the answer based on the UK experience. The once state owned water, gas, electricity and rail entities, were all privatised some years ago. The result in all cases has been dire - the shareholders rewarded themselves but neglected manintenance. As a result untreated sewage now flows freely in rivers and seas which are unswimmable as a result. Trains are dreadfully unreliable. Roads are littered with potholes. Electricity is unaffordable as is gas. One can go o, but the lesson is be careful of privatisation in the short term.