TK POOE: Frozen in ‘ANC gaze’ amid opposition parties’ shortcomings

The May 29 election is being touted as a referendum on the ANC’s poor leadership of the SA economy, governance institutions and other related issues, correctly highlighting the governing party’s problematic approach to governance.

Some media pundits, pollsters and opposition politicians see the ANC receiving as little as 40% of the vote. However, the ANC’s fortunes aside, I want to explore the idea of how we should view opposition political figures and parties if together they fail to reach 51% nationally and cannot form a new government after the election.

If the ANC still occupies the Union Buildings post-May 2024 I put it to you that the real referendum will have been on the opposition parties and leaders of the past decade or so.

ANC fate long noted

I fully understand that this is a contrarian, if not odd view. However, the idea that the 2024 general elections should be seen as a referendum on ANC governance skills or lack thereof misses two crucial facts.

The verdict on the ANC’s governance of SA has long been made by analysing the past six general elections results. These were: 2019 — 57.5%, 2011 — 62.15%, 2009 — 65.9%, 2004 — 69.69%, 1999 — 66.35%, and 1994 62.65%. It is clear that the 2004 election was the zenith of the ANC’s political and economic offering to SA. Thereafter it has, correctly, been punished for promoting subpar leaders, picking the wrong policy options, failing to operationalise state-owned enterprises as engines of industrial policy, and failing to define the national interest of the republic for regional economic growth. In short, the ANC’s lack of leadership and delivery to citizens in metropolitan areas and selected rural areas has been punished, and the assumption is that 2024 will simply continue that trend.

But perhaps a more important consideration when it comes to the 2024 general election results is what happens if opposition parties do end up occupying the seat of power in Pretoria. It is my contention that the focus on simply removing the ANC, and not addressing post-election policies and plans, is the referendum proposition citizens will judge the opposition by.

Speaking to various citizens from not only my poorly managed hometown of Evaton but also other SA regions, it is clear that the ANC is widely accepted as failing. However, what they and other citizens ask is what do the opposition parties stand for, beyond the critique of the ANC? Unfortunately, many opposition figures and parties have fallen under the spell of what I term the “gaze of the ANC”.

Missing link

The point I am making here is not that change is not needed, but rather that historical opposition parties such as the DA, EFF, IFP, FF+, ACDP and others have failed to provide a struggling SA with a viable alternative. I do not want it to seem as if I am unsympathetic to the struggles of historical opposition parties, but it is clear to me that the “ANC gaze” has had a negative effect on their political communication and policy offering.

The “ANC gaze” is a situation where listening and reading opposition offering ultimately sounds like what the youth would term “the ANC living rent-free” in their minds. It is almost as if they themselves cannot imagine a post-ANC SA to present to us.

This phenomenon is not unique to SA, as researcher and author Bertha Chiroro details: “The legitimacy enjoyed by the liberation parties causes ideological dilemmas for the opposition in its competing claims about the shape of economic and political governance”. When was the last time you heard an opposition figure start or answer a question about addressing a specific issue without invoking the name or mistakes of the ANC?

Many defenders of the opposition, and even pollsters declaring the death and total obliteration of the ANC, seem to be unable to explain why in past elections many citizens still made the ANC their choice, or simply chose to stay home, ignoring opposition offerings. Where is the analysis about the lack of an actual vision for a post-ANC offering?

The accusation that SA opposition political parties have failed needs to be seen against the numerous leadership problems SA is facing. I find it hard that there is no groundbreaking opposition offering about how to address an official unemployment total of 7.9-million citizens, for example. Or, more correctly at the expanded unemployment measure, of 11.7-million citizens? Why is this not driving millions of voters to choose the opposition? Is this the fault of citizens for not reading their manifestos, perhaps? Or is it that the opposition parties simply do not have solutions? 

What I do know is that elsewhere in the world governing parties that underperform are removed from office. Consider recent election results in Ecuador, Guatemala, Argentina, Australia and — according to opinion polls — possibly soon the UK and US later this year. Therefore, it seems questions need to be asked about the quality and form of the SA opposition if this is not the case in SA.

Some might point to the Western Cape as an example where change did occur, yet if you look at past general elections results the DA should be in a stronger position than its 2019 result of 55.45% of the vote. In fact, an argument can be made that the DA peaked as a true alternative to the ANC in 2014 with 59.38% of the provincial vote, building on 2009’s 51.46% and 2004’s 27.11%. On this basis, it seems the DA is almost as much a declining force in the run-up to May 29 as is the ANC.

The true referendum

As the 54th speaker of the US House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, stated: “Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains. And, well, we’re feeling those growing pains today. Doing big things is hard. All of us. All of us, myself included, we will need time to reflect on how we got to this moment, what we could have done to do it better”.

I am making a case here that perhaps the media and political analysts have for too long also been frozen in the “ANC gaze”, forgetting to explore whether the historical opposition as now constructed is ready to govern, and whether we as citizens are willing to accept the mistakes they are bound to make.

In elucidating on the psychological effects of losing elections for opposition parties — another effect of the “ANC gaze” — Tory MP Charles Walker said: “Any party when they lose a general election tends to lose its self-confidence and that is absolutely fatal... There’s this sort of political appetite for simple solutions to complex problems”.

When excitedly reading curious poll results and hyping up opposition figures, we need to reflect on Walker’s broader point, namely that hoping for alternatives should not be the aim. We should be demanding substantive and sound policies.

If on June 1 the traditional opposition parties together fail to garner 51% of the vote nationally a referendum result will have been given, namely that the historical opposition parties are now obsolete. And since referendums by their very nature require new reactions, perhaps the setting of the sun for the historical opposition will give us new post-ANC political parties that better understand the zeitgeist of a post-2024 SA.

• Pooe is a public policy specialist at the Wits School of Governance. He writes in his personal capacity.