Power, freedom and unity emerged as key themes when President Jacob Zuma hit municipal election mode at the weekend in three provinces, addressing the Gauteng ANC general council and the ANC local government election manifesto launches in the Free State and North West.

Elections are “an instrument of power” and if power is not understood it could be lost, Zuma told his Gauteng audience, according to reports in Business Day, IOL and The Citizen. Winning at the hustings with big numbers was key because small victory margins could lead to too many challenges, Zuma told his Free State audience, according to City Press. A call for convincing election wins was also made in North West, according to the SABC, where Zuma told his audience only the ANC had the interests of poor South Africans at heart.

And Zuma took a dig at opposition parties, saying he had tried to listen to them. “There is nothing they say. They can’t challenge our policy and programmes. How could we be defeated by people who don’t know what they are saying?” Zuma told the Gauteng ANC general council, according to The Citizen.

Such statements underscore the long-standing narrative of the ANC in Parliament. Although there are various permutations of this storyline, some more delicate than others, these can be broadly summed up thus: the ANC is the leader of South Africa, having liberated the country from apartheid, and the opposition parties have nothing to present to the country. Opposition parties, particularly the DA and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), shout and harangue because they have no alternative proposals. This narrative goes on to argue: if the opposition had something to contribute, they would have persuaded the ANC to adopt them. Instead they shout to undermine the ANC administration because of racism (DA), or because of destructive tendencies (EFF).

Such a narrative conveniently ignores the numbers game at the national legislature, of which the ANC makes full use in both committees and in the House (the governing party gets the lion’s share of speaking time, motions, and questions to the president, among others). Luthuli House in the past year has repeatedly insisted its ANC caucus in Parliament take a harder line, to close down spaces for opposition parties like the DA and EFF, even in debates.

And for Maynier, this effectively means his proposals, no matter how well researched and well-intentioned, will be nixed. On Monday, the DA MP took a pragmatic view.

“We put our proposals in in good faith. We think they are reasonable… We have a duty as an opposition to use the power that we have to make our proposals,” he told Daily Maverick in reference to the 2009 Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act, which allows Parliament to amend, or even reject, a budget.

Effectively, the 399 amendments proposed by the DA would mean shifting a total of R9.52-billion across budget line items in various votes:

• R1.2-billion to create 180,000 expanded public works programme job opportunities this year;
• R500-million for the SAPS to establish special gang and drug units;
• R2.73-billion for student financial support and university subsidies;
• R117.89-million to close the funding shortfall of the public protector;
• R2.24-billion more for grants so poor South Africans are cushioned against rising food prices, and
• R4.2-billion for emergency drought relief to farmers.

And while individual DA MPs in individual department budget votes will raise the relevant proposals again, ANC numbers will ensure the proposals will be dismissed.

It’s a predictable course in Parliament, despite the rhetoric of it being the nation’s debating chamber. Upsets are few and far between: one example is the failure to approve Cecil Burgess, the ANC’s former joint standing committee on intelligence chairman, as the new intelligence inspector-general. Burgess also steered through Parliament the Protection of State Information Bill, dubbed the Secrecy Bill. The ANC failed to muster the at least 17 additional votes it needed to meet the constitutional two-thirds majority threshold since mid-2015 – and the job has yet to be filled.

For as long as the ANC holds majorities – in Parliament, in the Executive, in provincial legislatures and executives and in councils – the governing party has little to worry about, nor any reason to change its narrative of power through numbers.

However, while the ANC continues to achieve impressive election majorities, its showing has been waning. From a high of 69.69% in the 2004 national and provincial elections, the governing party has dropped to 65.9% in 2009, and 62.1% in 2014, according to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).

The election body also shows that ANC local election results dipped in 2011 to 63.65%, including the outcome of the predominately rural district municipalities, from 66.3% in the 2006 municipal poll. In the 2000 local government elections, the ANC nationally scored 61.76% of all municipal votes cast.

The 3 August local government elections will be contested hard across the board. The ANC wants the numerical majority to prove its point as leader of society. The DA knows it must break out of the Western Cape to boost its appeal across the country. The EFF wants to showcase that its brand of politics has appeal across spheres of government.

Amid deepening sharp divisions of the South African political landscape the opening electioneering volleys have been fired. DM

Photo: South Africans evicted from their land two weeks ago, warm themselves around a fire as they gather at a site to discuss their options after their homes were destroyed in Lwandle, Cape Town, South Africa, 18 June 2014. EPA/NIC BOTHMA