As part of our extensive coverage of the lead-up to the local government elections set for November 1, The Free Stater will feature different political parties, analysts, community activists and other players every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. To kick it off, we speak to University of the Free State academic Professor Sethulego Matebesi on how he views these municipal elections given the myriad of issues faced by communities across the country. Matebesi is involved in research and advocacy work on social movements, protests, governance and public participation at local government level as well as mining in South Africa.
How do you see the municipal elections panning out given the challenges faced by communities, such as the lack of basic services like water and sanitation as well as poor service delivery in general?
If you look at the statistics on service delivery protests or community protests, you will see during each election there is quite a significant increase in the number of protests. Now, this tells you there is a link between protests and elections. And perhaps . . . does this have a significant impact on the outcome of the elections? Not necessarily. We have seen in the past, South Africans don’t vote according to the problems that they have encountered. If that was the case, I strongly believe by now the African National Congress wouldn’t be the ruling party today.
How would you characterise the attitude of ordinary South Africans when it comes to elections?
South Africans move between civil society organisations or groups and your more formal parties. People would vote for a party and then a couple of weeks after elections, they protest against the very same party that they voted for. That’s very typical. It’s unlike in other countries where voters would go out and punish that particular party. So, in a nutshell, despite all the problems that the governing party is experiencing – we have seen it several times – that does not mean it will lose significant votes.
But it certainly cannot be easy for parties that have failed to deliver on their promises. Won’t some voters consider taking their votes elsewhere?
We have seen in urban areas where people start protesting against the nomination of candidates, I think that’s where you will have problems because some people may decide not to turn up to vote on election day. Voter turnout often has a huge impact on the outcome of the election.
The Free State is expected to see a significant increase in the number of independent candidates in these elections. So do you see voters putting their faith in them?
I think the independents, to a certain extent, will dominate the councils in the province. It won’t be the entire Free State, but if you have one or three independent candidates winning seats in a municipality which only has eight seats, that is quite significant. We have seen what happened in Phuthaditjhaba with the MAP 16. So, all these things, I think will play a role. But generally, I strongly believe the ANC will still hold onto most of the municipalities that they are running but the metro municipalities will be a huge problem for the ruling party.
The EFF have been quite prominent in their campaign this time and they are quite positive they will grab a number of votes from the major parties. How much confidence do you think people have in the party?
I have seen the manifesto of the EFF. There is one item saying if they win certain municipalities, they are going to ensure that the elderly who receive grants are automatically put on the indigent list. That to me is suicidal because it looks good on paper, but the question is: how realistic is this? There are some people who receive grants but they have support structures such as child working as a nurse, police officer or other forms of income. So, if you suddenly put that household on the indigent list, that could cause problems. We haven’t reached that stage where that could be sustainable.
Are you suggesting this could be just another campaign statement which might not be fulfilled?
We have seen with numerous campaigns what the EFF does. They play on the emotions of the most vulnerable. I can remember the Clicks campaign. I don’t think any political party has done what the EFF has done in terms of being brave and putting up a fight for the black child. They are very prominent with their campaigns but it seems as if that does not resonate with the South African electorate because we haven’t seen a significant increase in their support. The EFF will still be there, they will still be the kingmakers in certain municipalities. And what is very surprising about the EFF is, even if they have one member in a council of 15, they still have quite a significant impact. But we still want to see the support they get on social media translating into votes.
COSATU, one of the partners in the tripartite alliance with the ANC and the SACP, organised nationwide protests against high unemployment and the huge cuts in the national budget. While one would expect them to be campaigning with the ANC, could this be an indication of dwindling confidence in the party?
Not necessarily. My view is that COSATU should not be in an alliance with the ANC. Some of the leaders might have been stepped on their toes and now suddenly they want to show some ANC leaders the power that they have. It doesn’t make sense. Actually, I think they are confusing the South African workers. You can’t have a labour organisation being in bed with a political party. There was historically a reason for that. But we have seen it numerous times with the SACP saying when they go to conference, they will decide whether they will still support the ANC or not. And once that happens, one should just understand there may be problems behind the scenes.
And given the voter apathy witnessed in the past elections, how do you see the voter turnout in this election?
People will go and vote but remember it’s a working day, it’s a Monday. It would have been preceded by two days’ off. Special votes will be over the weekend. Those are very problematic especially for people registered in their home towns and work somewhere else. There has always been a problem with the turnout for local government elections. The COVID-19 pandemic may also keep some people away. It’s very difficult to make a prediction on this particular one but I foresee a situation where we might have a much lower voter turnout.
The ANC in the Free State has just suspended its chief whip on allegations of working with independent candidates for the local government elections. How united is the ANC for such things to happen?
There could be a huge problem. How did the organisation get to this stage and how could somebody so senior do such a thing? Remember this is politics. There could be other issues which we are not aware of and now they are trying to get rid of him. We have seen with the MAP 16. It could be that the party does not listen and one decides to commit political suicide. It cannot be condoned because you are put in that position to serve the interests of the party. It will be interesting to know what led to that.
