Inside Politics Analysis
With three weeks to go until the 29 May elections, ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa and a full contingent of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) hit the campaign trail in KwaZulu-Natal from Monday in a bid to keep control of the country’s most influential province.
With KwaZulu-Natal contributing more than 2 million of the ANC’s 10 million votes in 2019, its chairperson, Siboniso Duma, heads a leadership which faces a massive task in holding off challenges from both the Inkatha Freedom Party/Democratic Alliance and the breakaway uMkhonto we Sizwe Party.
Faced with a string of by-election losses since the November 2021 local government elections – in which it took just over 45% of the vote across the province, Duma (48) – faces the most difficult environment of all the ANC’s premier candidates – outside the DA-controlled Western Cape.
Duma, who has been a Provincial MP since 2014, became ANC chairperson in July 2022, backed by the so-called Taliban faction, trouncing Sihle Zikalala, who was replaced by Nomusa Dube-Ncube as Premier that August.
A former supporter of former President Jacob Zuma, Duma has established himself with the Ramaphosa camp, but has made a number of public gaffes in his roles as KwaZulu-Natal’s “shadow premier” by using his role as leader of government business to steal the limelight.
In the most notorious incident, Duma snatched the William Webb Ellis trophy from Dube-Ncube during the Springbok Rugby team’s victory parade in Durban after the World Cup last year.
Duma may be forced to bring on board a coalition partner if he is to become Premier of the province the ANC has held since 2004, with polls predicting that it will fall far below the 50%+1 it needs to govern.
The latest tracking poll conducted by the Social Research Foundation (SRF) for April and May shows an ANC in crisis in the Province, with less than 30% of respondents indicating that they would vote for the governing party to stay in control of the Province should elections take place tomorrow.
The ANC polled between 27% and 27% in a voter turnout of between 66% and 60%, with it remaining the largest party in the Province, but losing the ability to govern alone.
The most apparent threat to the ANC comes from the IFP/DA coalition and its partners in the Multi Party Charter for South Africa.
The IFP’s premier candidate and Provincial chairperson, Thami Ntuli, leads its campaign for KwaZulu-Natal and is one of those credited with its fightback there, which has seen it take back the majority of the municipalities it lost to the ANC between 2006 and 2011.
The Nkandla-born Ntuli was Mayor of the Zululand town for 10 years and is currently the Mayor of the King Cetshwayo District Municipality, under which the town falls.
In the last local government elections, the IFP took ward 14 – where Zuma lives – off the ANC.
Ntuli consolidated his position as the IFP Premier candidate after a behind the scenes battle with its president, Velenkosini Hlabisa, towards the end of last year.
Hlabisa was forced to accept a deployment to the National Assembly to replace the late party founder Mangosuthu Buthelezi after his death late last year, despite wanting to stay in the province.
This cleared the way for Ntuli to make the move from local government to the legislature – and the Premiership if the IFP has its way – after 29 May.
Ntuli (51) has targeted Zuma in his campaign appearances – many of which have been focused on the IFP heartland north of the Tugela River – calling on voters not to “vote for the same tsotsi twice.”
Ntuli – like Duma – will need a coalition partner to govern KwaZulu-Natal, despite the dramatic comeback the party has made.
The SRF poll showed IFP support at between 16% and 18% (based on 60% and 66% turnout), and even with its pre-election coalition with the DA, the African Christian Democratic Party, ActionSA and others, it may still battle to scrape together enough votes for a majority.
The DA Premier Chris Pappas (32), the current Umngeni Local Municipality Mayor, is one of the party’s rising stars and – with Duma and Ntuli – gives the Province its fair share of political players of substance in its premiers elect.
A former MPL who headed the campaign which won the DA Umgeni by a tiny margin in 2021, Pappas has been the public face of the governance model it has tried to sell voters in the Province in the build up to 29 May.
A town planner turned politician, Pappas’ fluency in the Zulu language and person gives the DA an element of reach they have lacked in earlier campaigns, but the recent SRF poll still pegs its support at between 18% and 23%, depending on turnout.
Pappas has spent the last week working eThekwini – the province’s largest voting pool – along with Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and will headline the DA’s Rescue KZN rally on 11 May.
Pappas told a media briefing in the city that his first action if elected Premier would be to place eThekwini under administration and to request that the presidency appoint a Special Investigating Unit probe into the city’s water and sanitation operations.
“We will put a team of administrators in place to start getting the city right. We put a freeze on all bonuses for all managers until we are convinced that they are delivering the services they are being paid to deliver,” Pappas said.
While Ntuli and Pappas are the names most commonly associated with challenges for the premiership, the emergence of the MK Party creates a new – and perhaps more pressing – threat to Duma’s future.
The SRF poll showed the MK Party as the second most popular in the province with around 26% of respondents backing them in a 66% turnout scenario and around 24% in a situation in which there is a 60% turnout on 29 May.
The party took 28% in a by-election in ward 2, uPhongolo, in the north of the province in February, snatching votes off both the ANC and the IFP, and 21% in an earlier by-election in Vryheid.
Former KwaZulu-Natal Director-General Nhlanhla Ngidi was named as its KwaZulu-Natal premier candidate on its list submitted to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).
Ngidi, who served several terms as an ANC MP, had attempted to contest the ANC Provincial chair in 2022 but failed to make it onto the ballot.
He was appointed by Zuma as MK Provincial coordinator and later named as its choice as Premier.
However, Ngidi was removed from the list a week after it was submitted in one of the many internal shakeups that have taken place in the breakaway party since its public launch in December.
While Zuma’s name is top of the party’s list to the National Assembly, there is speculation that he may be deployed as MK’s Premier candidate in the province should the party fail to make a significant impact beyond KwaZulu-Natal’s borders.
INSIDE POLITICS
