2024 ELECTIONS: ANALYSIS
While parties look to #FillUpTheStadium, rallies are no indicator of election results
As election season gets into full swing, many political parties will seek to attract big crowds at their rallies — but filling up a stadium does not directly translate to votes.
On Saturday, the EFF held its manifesto launch — the first of the major political parties to do so. The party held its gathering in the election battleground of KwaZulu-Natal, which is believed to be up for grabs with the entry of Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party and the strength of the IFP, which is expected to give the ANC a run for its money.
KZN has South Africa’s second-largest number of voters after Gauteng, which makes it an important province for parties to penetrate. Current polling suggests that the ANC will lose its majority in the province, where it won 54.22% in 2019.
While the province is not an EFF stronghold, as the third-largest party in South Africa, the Red Berets believed they could fill Durban’s 56,000-seater Moses Mabhida Stadium.
However, it was a tough ask as they had decided not to bus in members from other provinces, and the party, which filled Johannesburg’s 94,000-seater FNB Stadium beyond capacity for its 10th anniversary, fell short in Durban.
A visibly ill Malema was cheered on by supporters in the stadium, which was about 70% full.
The EFF’s deputy president, Floyd Shivambu, who is deployed to oversee KZN for the party, was tasked with filling the stadium. The EFF in the province is led by the party’s recently appointed KZN chairperson Mongezi Twala.
It is believed that heads will roll after the EFF failed to fill the stadium, despite Malema expressing his gratitude to Shivambu and the province’s ground forces in his speech.
Read more in Daily Maverick: Land, jobs and energy dominate as EFF launches its manifesto ahead of poll
“I am very happy that the KZN comrades were able to fill up this stadium on their own without comrades from other provinces. You have made history today, and you must be proud of yourself that those who said you will never enter Mabhida, you entered Mabhida and those who said there is no EFF in KZN today, they have scientific proof that there is EFF in KZN.
“Those who thought EFF is a regional organisation today know that the EFF is a national organisation and therefore I am happy to be part of this history, and that many generations to come will read that the EFF went to break new grounds in a difficult province and made it alive,” Malema said.
Ego and clout
The ANC secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, took to X to criticise the poor attendance. Others on social media followed suit and mocked Malema.
Moses Mabhida mongwaneng!!! pic.twitter.com/CCETKQkG6q
— ANC SECRETARY GENERAL | Fikile Mbalula (@MbalulaFikile) February 10, 2024
The EFF has been run as a mass organisation anchored by protest action and even in its earlier days was able to mobilise some of the largest crowds of any political party.
Besides the success of its anniversary celebrations last year, in 2015 the EFF held a peaceful demonstration which attracted about 50,000 people at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in Sandton.
It has also had its fair share of lukewarm gatherings, like last year’s failed “national shutdown”.
Read more in Daily Maverick: Gaslighters-in-Chief: The true meaning of the EFF’s big national fizzle
However, there is no evidence that people attending a political party’s rallies have any intention of voting or are even registered to do so.
South Africans attend rallies for many reasons. While some might be staunch supporters of the political party holding the rally, others could be enticed by the free T-shirt and food parcel they receive for being there.
EFF predicted to grow
The EFF is the fourth-largest party in KwaZulu-Natal, where it received 349,361 votes (9%) in the provincial election in 2019 and seeks to grow further in this year’s elections.
It won 10.8% nationally in 2019. A recent Ipsos poll put the party at 19.6% in this year’s general election. Another recent poll suggested the EFF could take 16% nationally and 12% in KZN. An October 2023 Ipsos poll found the EFF would win 13% of the vote in KZN.
However, these surveys were conducted before Zuma launched the MK party and took aim at the ANC. The voter appeal of the MK party is unknown — but it will take away ANC voters.
In the end, no matter how many supporters attend parties’ rallies, the only number that counts is the number of voters who mark their X on election day. DM
These parties go to great lengths to fill stadiums and entice voters which is driven by the numbers needed to win the elections.
With a stagnant economy and dwindling international support we need something short of a miracle to pull a rabbit out of the hat.
The grand policies furnished by parties need invisible financing.
One can only pray that we don’t go to the stone age before we rebuild the country again.
For a ruling party to be amused that another party did not fill a stadium just shows how desperate and disconnected they are from real issues engulfing the country and they believe they have the luxury of counting people attending stadiums.
Invisible Party financing….. we don’t need that
This is typical middle class condescension of the EFF and it’s supporters that is as dangerous as it is fatuous. It’s a type of intuitive reaction borne out of a sort of deep rooted prejudice endemic to South Africa. Everytime the “masses” are concerned, the response applies a patronisingly reductionist superiority, often resorting to an arrogant adoption of imprecise beliefs without assessing if reality backs up the logic.
T-shirts and a cold meal!!
Really?
That is the posited adult hypothesis on why a fully grown person should find it necessary to eschew family and friends, brave the elements, spend their time and money on transport…. to obtain a t-shirt of little life-style utility beyond the event itself and a KFC takeaway worth circa R40??
If this is the demonstrably dependable hack for assembling the simple masses then why don’t Steenhuisen, Mashaba, Maimane, Et al just copy and paste? Why not just plagiarise Malema’s winning ways given what’s at stake?
I fear we will not learn to respect these people until it’s too late.
Perhaps the target audience plays a part in the eagerness to participate for what you might view as meagre gains.
Just a guess, but disgruntled youth (the demographic where the EFF is making its strongest gains according to various sources) without jobs, poorly educated on the workings of national politics and the related financial needs (but with a vote worth as much as that of any other person) might just be swayed by the insane manifesto the EFF claim they’d deliver.
What is to respect? Which part of Julius Malema and his red machine’s political journey is worthy of respect? He’s clever, not denying that at all. But worthy of respect earned, no. A manifesto built on a policy of aggression, theft and impossible to deliver financial promises doesn’t earn respect.
I suspect that any respect he does receive is driven by one of two things; greed or fear. Ironically, I’ve watched the man speak at a business conference and he’s no fool. But put him in the front of a camera or any group of people he thinks he can stir up with fiery rhetoric and fairy dust promises, and he transforms into someone that would surely destroy a country.
Malema, the Commander-in-Chief, is the ringmaster who attracts and enthralls the crowds. He holds centre, back and sidestage with loud rhetoric and promises that his heady promises will happen. Heady stuff!
No other EFF leader really features at its big events. Are there other leaders that could step up with the same magnetism, and appeal? Or is EFF likely to melt into a red cesspool should anything untoward afflict it’s C-I-C and sole (loud) mouthpiece?
Thank you Queenin for making the point that filling up a stadium isn’t equal to votes. I always feel it’s something that is seldom mentioned in the media.
At An EFF event last year, every single EFF MP, MPC etc had to organise and pay from their own money for a bus, buy meals, and pay for t shirts. And those that failed to do so were fired! We shall see in due course whether the 75% filled stadium was filled on this basis or whether the EFF supporters were truly inspired to attend this event
Given the overlap between the style and substance of EFF and JZ783/MK, it is probable that the latter will cannibalise some support from EFF as well as ANC.
Something the chatterati do not seem to consider.
If the media published the kind of rubbish claims that Julius did this weekend, they would be sued for lying.
The list is too long to go into, but Julius’s promises are far removed from logic (if we do this that will happen) and likelihood (we will fix Eskom in 6 months for example).
By insourcing construction, security, cleaning, transport and various things presently supplied by private companies, Julius will do the same work while creating 4 million more jobs than are currently filled in those roles.
The only way Julius solves loadshedding is by nationalising. Permanently removing 10GW of electrical demand is the only way to ends loadshedding.
As to confiscating land for redistribution, he should try it. Virtually 100% of land in private hands now was acquired and improved by the owner, not stolen or given to the owner. Those owners have nothing to lose and mostly nowhere to go. So if Julius wants land, then he’ll get land. There will not be a factory or crop or dam or bridge or road or borehole left standing. That can be achieved in one weekend.
You have to applaud some strategic intent – aiming at public sector employees and prisoners. A not-inconsequential voter base… many of them disgruntled.