Only 67% of those eligible to vote have registered to vote in the November 2021 local government elections – the lowest figure since the dawn of democracy in 1994. About 13 million people who could have voted are not registered. At the same time, an unprecedented 944 independent candidates and many new, mainly local, working-class community civics registered to contest.
These seemingly contradictory features signify seismic political shifts taking place; the widening social and political gulf is made worse by the devastation of the working class in the deepening crises of South African capitalism and global imperialism. Most immediately, they show the further erosion of confidence in the political parties of the ruling class and the resurgence in the search for a working class alternative.
Working class youth disillusioned
The vast majority of South Africans – 32 million – are under 30 years old. There are 15 million South Africans under the age of 30 that are eligible to vote in these local elections. Only 4.6 million of them have registered – less than 1 in 3. This is a massive downturn from the 6.3 million in the 2016 local elections, when the EFF had energized a significant layer of the black working class youth. In 2019, despite a major campaign by the IEC to build the youth vote, only 5.6 million registered. It is clear that increasingly the parties battling it out on the electoral stage – both nationally and locally – are failing to inspire the youth of South Africa to cast their votes.
In the context of the future that the youth of today face, it is not surprising they are not inspired to cast their votes. On top of a global pandemic that has dominated life for one and a half years and the economic crisis aggravated by it, climate change is accelerating at such a pace that the future seems bleak for many young people. The working class and youth want effective solutions while the major parties present nothing. All we see in the slogans and posters are the same fake capitalist solutions to capitalist-caused problems.
This mass sentiment was already present in the 2019 National Elections, when for the first time since 1994, less than half of the voting population cast their ballots. Although Ramaphosa managed to win back some ANC middle class voters from the DA, for the majority of eligible voters he was simply a millionaire candidate for the class of millionaires. He did not represent the millions of working class people and youth. Crucially, Ramaphosa was tasked with purging the rot of corruption in the ANC while making South Africa attractive to the bosses’ and investors’ class. It was these mainly middle-class illusions in Ramaphosa, as a representative of monopoly capitalism, that allowed the ANC to claw onto a majority and not fall below 50%.
Capitalist parties’ race to the bottom
WASP consistently exposed and combatted these illusions, pointing to the deeper causes of the ‘investment strike’ and impossibility of ‘surgically removing’ corrupt elements from the ANC. Ramaphosa’s economic performance and raging factional war has resulted in murderous reaction. It also would have cost ANC over 30 municipalities without contest if it weren’t for the IEC’s intervention to extend the submission period of candidate lists. Any illusions in Ramaphosa have been bitterly shattered.
Apart from the economic crisis, Ramaphosa has reigned over a historic pandemic that has exposed the criminal negligence by the ANC of the public healthcare system and the social safety nets for the vast majority of the working class. Since May 2020, 261 000 more people than normal have died in South Africa, according to the excess deaths data from SAMRC (25 Sept 2021). On top of this devastating blow, working class people have been hit by a jobs bloodbath, police repression, failure of social and employment grant schemes, lack of service delivery and a failing education system. No wonder the levels of distrust and disillusionment in the ANC are even higher than in 2019. Corruption continues to surface, including the new brand of Covid-Corruption, where money intended to keep the population safe from Covid-19 instead enriches government elites and their families. This will certainly weigh heavily on voters’ minds at the polls. These scandals implicate even the few who gained credibility at the start of the pandemic, such as Zweli Mkhize (former national Minister of Health) and Bandile Masuku (Gauteng MEC of Health), and Panyasa Lesufi (Gauteng MEC of Education). Any political gain the regime may have made from being seen as having performed ‘reasonably better’ compared to the right-wing populist regimes in the US, Brazil, and India, has been completely wasted.
We expect the ANC will continue to shed votes. Whether the losses will mean losing crucial metros as in 2016 when they lost Tshwane, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) while retaining Ekurhuleni only through a coalition government, is not certain. This would depend on the performance of many independent candidates and parties, as well as opposition parties. The DA, the biggest opposition, is facing the worst crisis since its rise in the post-1994 era.
Democratic Alliance
In 2016, the DA gained control of Nelson Mandela Bay through a coalition, and formed minority governments in Johannesburg, and Tshwane. Increasingly the DA has proven itself a party for the wealthy and the white. While it lost 500 000 votes between the 2015 and 2019 national elections, it gained seats in parliament due mostly to the decrease in total voters. But its model city – the “best governed city” – is failing on a tremendous scale. While boasting surplus budgets, there is an increase in homelessness coupled with selling off of public land to big developers and service delivery is poor.
As we stated in the 2014 elections, the difficulties for the DA to break through their electoral ceiling are clear. They have been unable to build on their success in the 2016 local elections, and have instead deteriorated. The deepening economic crisis of capitalism has not only polarised society along class lines, but racial lines too. The ambition to build a new support base among the black middle class could only ever go so far – given how small and precarious this “middle class” in reality is amid the persistent racist structuring of the capitalist economy. The DA could not sustain the idea of rainbowism because a conflict of interest developed along racial lines within the party. The DA appealed to the black middle class because that was the only way for the party to grow. However, at the same time, this decision created the conditions for the party to descend into the explosive situation it is in currently.
Economic Freedom Fighters
The EFF has tarnished its posture as a champion of crusade against anti-black racism and corruption. Following the 2016 elections they took on opportunistic informal coalitions in the metros where they were “kingmakers” instead of using their position to expose the ruling parties and represent working class interests. In key metros they sided with the DA, which they had previously characterized as a racist white party. There is also their collaboration with the most corrupt elements in the ANC in the looting of the mutual bank, VBS, as well as municipalities in Limpopo.
Although the EFF has managed to increase its support in every election, the low youth vote registration indicates the prospects of growth for them will be limited this time. Rather, this will be an election where parties battle it out for votes amongst longer-standing voters.
Alternatives give no alternative
The intense hostility towards the ANC, was most graphically highlighted by the recent stoning of its campaigners by the community in KZN’s uMngeni Municipality. The implosion of the DA, IFP, UDM and growing disillusionment in the EFF are also crystal clear. On the other hand, many local working class parties that emerged in previous elections were compromised by opportunism and lack of strategies of their leadership in many local councils. Prolonged lockdowns and stringent restrictions on mass activity in the past two years means many new independent candidates and parties are not backed by organised, mass local community movements in the same way as those which came out of the mass community struggles in the pre-Marikana period such as the African Independent Congress, Bushbuckridge Resident Association, Socialist Civic Movement and Mpumalanga (Bolshevik) party amongst others.
We might see some growth in new parties – De Lille’s GOOD party in the Western Cape stands to win voters from both ANC and DA, potentially dealing a blow to the DA’s comfortable majority in Cape Town. Putting Brett Heron as the face of GOOD could prove a serious mistake, especially in a race where all major parties bar the EFF are putting forward white men for Cape Town mayor.
There are also prospects of the growth of right wing nationalist parties like the Cape Coloured Congress, who came second in a by-election in Delft recently. In Gauteng and other provinces, parties like ActionSA and Freedom Front may grow from voters disillusioned with DA.
We should expect that the local elections will see more potential for coalition governments in big metros. Also, we should be clear that even though resorting to a coalition government is a blow to the crushing dominance the ANC has enjoyed since the end of apartheid, and a sign that people are losing faith in them, the ultimate point of coalition governments is to save the capitalist system. In times of crisis, we will see how these capitalist parties find a lot of “common ground” and are able to “work together” when the whole system they thrive off of is threatened.
Unlike previous elections, the outcome of this one is difficult to predict due to the current political volatility. This volatility is a fundamental feature of the complicated historic cross-roads in the country and across the world. This includes the sharp contrasts between the number of parties of the ruling class and a serious vacuum in working class political representation.
Working class strategy
WASP will unfortunately not be running any candidates in these elections. We are, however, urging working class people to reject the ruling class parties and false alternatives presented by xenophobic right-wingers like Mashaba. The working class should instead look to independent candidates and genuine community civics which stand on the platform of struggle and use them to push for development of working class political alternatives. Communities should insist that candidates run on a programme of democratic community engagement and struggle and that they, if elected, must set an example as true representatives of the working class by taking no more than an average skilled workers wage in pay. Furthermore, the candidates must commit to subjecting themselves to the right of immediate recall by their communities if they cease to represent the working class interests of their constituencies.
It would be impossible for us to list the many independent forums and groups running as working class and community activists. However, we are open to both engage with any and assist with publicity on the basis of the above minimum criteria. A major hurdle for these candidates is resources to fund election materials and we urge communities to actively take part in meetings and discussions around these candidates that offer an alternative to the rotten rule of the capitalist parties. Meanwhile, SAFTU and the Working Class Summit (WCS) must take leadership in engaging and co-ordinating these independent working class candidates and community civics as well as supporting them with the formulation of a programme, campaigns and mobilization of resources. They must then publish their platforms and immediately call on their provincial structures and affiliated trade unions and community organizations to identify and engage with these candidates.
As we publish this, there are at least three strike actions by SAFTU-affiliated unions, Cosatu has had a general strike, there are deadlocks in the mining industry and the dispute in the public sector remains unresolved. SAFTU and the WCS Steering Committee should reenergize the Summit process by calling its affiliates and structures to immediately intervene in the elections and ongoing strikes. Although these elections may mean little in terms of class struggle, they are still an arena that could be used to raise class- and political consciousness and intensify working class struggles. For example the WCS could intervene to build community support for the engineering strikes and vice versa. In addition to the endorsement and support of the independent working-class candidates and parties we propose above, WASP is also calling on the Working Class Summit to convene a post-election forum with all these candidates that were endorsed and are fighting for their communities.
By intervening strategically, SAFTU can also popularize the idea of an independent mass workers party, and a programme of fighting demands and socialist policies as an alternative to the capitalist parties.
At least 13 million people will not vote, but most will still pay attention to these elections. We cannot buy into the false idea that people who do not vote are simply “not political”. The lack of a real alternative plays a major role in not registering to vote. More than ten million of those not registered are under 30 years old. There is tremendous potential to tap into this section of disillusioned youth to build a consciousness around the way forward to a socialist world, free from oppression and the disastrous effects of climate change.
Class consciousness is shifting globally. Young people, and especially young women, are leading struggles. We have seen mass movements erupt around issues of healthcare, racism, reproductive rights, and importantly, against neoliberalism. More and more the youth are losing faith in the idea that we can vote for change, but they are becoming more willing to take to the streets. A workers’ party can clarify the ideas and programme for ending capitalism alongside the need for independent worker, community and youth organizations that will take that programme forward.
The increasing and explosive anger of the masses makes this task all the more urgent. The rising tide of working class resistance and this election present an opportunity in spite of WASP or other anti-capitalist parties not standing in this election. This can very well be the start of a movement that builds towards not only a political alternative for future elections, but towards the organizing of a genuine socialist alternative for the working class.
