Defend Truth

Opinionista

ANC taking a leaf out of the Nats’ book of election tricks

mm

Mmusi Maimane is leader of Build One SA.

The real reason the African National Congress (ANC) has raised the issue of reducing the number of provinces again is that if there are no provinces run by opposition parties, the ruling party’s own performance in government can’t be shown up. Losing the City of Cape Town in 2006 to the Democratic Alliance, followed by the Western Cape in 2009, was a far bigger blow to the ruling party than they’d ever care to admit. Unable to reverse the Western Cape results at the polls, the ANC is now forced to consider undemocratic measures to try to reclaim the province.

This past weekend, ANC delegates from around the country converged on Midrand for their national general council (NGC) – the party’s mid-term conference at which they review and discuss policy implementation. And it is not surprising that, among the many issues on the agenda, the idea of reducing the number of provinces has been placed on the table. Again.

I say again, because this idea – in various guises, ranging from the reduction of the number of provinces to turning provinces into mere administrative arms of the national government to scrapping them altogether – has been floating around since the early days of our democracy. It became a hot topic again shortly after the Democratic Alliance (DA) won the Western Cape in 2009, and was eventually officially recognised by the party at its 2012 national conference in Mangaung.

The official ANC line – or one of the official ANC lines at least, because there is nowhere near consensus on this – is that dissolving some provinces will lead to better governance and more effective service delivery. Other rationales include arguments that it would save money, that it would increase national cohesion and even that it would reduce corruption. But these arguments are put forward without any real attempts to substantiate them.

If governance and service delivery really were the issues, why not address this by fixing the problem provinces? Why persist with the catastrophic cadre deployment strategy when you can employ fit-for-purpose candidates in provincial government? And if the province is beyond saving, why not step in and take over? Our Constitution allows for functions of a provincial government to be taken over by national government in the event of failure.

The issue of cost saving doesn’t hold water either. Just consider the size of our bloated national government. There is no political will at all to save on government costs, because this is where loyalists are rewarded in the Zuma Inc patronage system. The inevitable revolt by members of provincial governments whose livelihoods will be threatened by provincial downsizing would likely just see them re-deployed to other positions in the state.

No, the real reason for the renewed urgency around the provinces debate is far less noble: If there are no provinces run by opposition parties, the ANC’s own performance in government can’t be shown up. Losing the City of Cape Town in 2006 to the DA, followed by the Western Cape in 2009, was a far bigger blow to the ruling party than they’d ever care to admit. A clean, efficient DA government that delivered better services to more people than any ANC-run province destroyed their only line of attack: that the DA was a racist party that did not care for the poor.

The DA’s track record in the Western Cape over the past six years has been incredibly damaging to the ANC. The province was left in a woeful state by the outgoing ANC government, and the turnaround under the DA was very soon evident. Suddenly government departments were getting clean audits and, by the 2011 census, the province was performing best in basic service delivery. The DA-run Western Cape was making other provinces look bad, and this made the ANC look bad.

Unable to reverse the Western Cape results at the polls, the ANC is now forced to consider undemocratic measures to try to reclaim the province. And one of these measures is to attempt to redraw provincial boundaries in such a way that it will dilute a DA majority in the Western Cape – most likely by incorporating parts of the Eastern Cape into the province.

Gerrymandering – the process of manipulating electoral boundaries for political advantage – is not new. The word dates back to the early 1800s when a Massachusetts governor by the name Elbridge Gerry changed the state’s election districts, ending up with an odd shape that resembled a salamander. Gerry + salamander = gerrymander.

The cynical practice has a special place in South African history too. The National Party’s repeated manipulation of electoral boundaries since its very first victory in 1948 saw it enjoy election results that seldom had any bearing on the will of the voters. It became a hallmark of the National Party’s government’s election strategy and contributed to the staying power of the apartheid government.

Almost 70 years later, our ANC government seems very eager to follow the questionable example of the Nats.

When we speak of gerrymandering, we normally refer to the redrawing of municipal boundaries for political benefit. Currently, the Municipal Demarcation Board is looking to make sweeping changes to over 40 municipal boundaries across South Africa under the pretext of amalgamating dysfunctional municipalities with functional municipalities. The official line is that this is being done to improve the local government’s performance, but in many cases it is simply a poorly disguised attempt to dilute a strong DA voter base.

Let me clarify – the DA is not opposed to the review of municipal boundaries. This process is crucial when it comes to ensuring that communities’ best interests are served. But there is a process and a time frame that must be adhered to in order to ensure proper community consultation and to prevent political interference. This time frame involves a two-year period for outer boundary demarcation, another two years for inner boundary delimitation and another year to populate the voters’ roll.

The demarcations in question are being rushed through with no regard for this process, and it is clearly with next year’s local government election in mind. The DA has already successfully halted the merger of Gauteng’s DA-run Midvaal and the ANC-run Emfuleni in court, and we will do the same wherever else we suspect an abuse of the process by the ANC.

However, provincial boundaries aren’t quite the same. They can only be altered with the consent of the respective provincial legislatures. Alternatively, this would require a constitutional amendment (and a two-thirds vote in Parliament), which seems highly unlikely. Add to this the not insignificant issue of loyal cadres who need to be rewarded with posts in eight provincial governments, and the prospects of gerrymandering on a provincial scale start to look a bit vague.

But the fact that this is a discussion topic at the ANC’s policy review conference gives us a very clear indication of their thinking. They are threatened, they don’t fancy their chances at the polls and they don’t mind damaging our democracy in the process. DM

Gallery

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.