ANC, DA and EFF: The race to win Gauteng in 2019
The economic powerhouse of SA is dominated by urban voters — and that’s the problem for the ANC, which alienated this demographic under Zuma. Can Cyril Ramaphosa tip the balance the other way?
When national government sneezes, Gauteng catches a cold, says premier David Makhura. Over the past five years national government not only sneezed but became seriously ill, with a debilitating impact on the province’s economy and the provincial government’s ability to deliver. Gauteng contributed just over a third of SA’s economic output in 2016, and according to a Statistics SA study released last month, the province’s economy is roughly the same size as that of Morocco. In 2016, its economy was the seventh largest in Africa, surpassing Kenya and Tanzania. No wonder it will be hotly contested in the elections next year, particularly after the DA seized the two biggest-budget cities from the ANC in the 2016 local elections. Makhura, who has been at the helm of the province since 2014, has gone through a great deal of turbulence since then, but has also registered successes that have been hailed by business and acknowledged by opposition parties. His Ntirhisano, or listening campaig...
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