PEOPLEELECTio PARTIESPOLITICSLOCAL

IN SOUTH AFRICA

PARTIES, PEOPLE, POLITICS

LOCALIN SOUTH AFRICA

LOCAL ELECTIONS IN

SOUTH AFRICAPARTIES, PEOPLE, POLITICS

Local elections in South Africa explores the politics of local government elections, focusing on how local electoral politics interfaces with local government and the socio-economic base of society. The time from local government election 2011 onward into 2012 was an evocative period in which to take stock of South Africa’s politics of the local. It was here that issues of development and poverty, social injustice and deficient governance came to bear most tangibly on the relationship between citizen and government. Serial and often unconvincing national government initiatives to turn around local government fuelled local discontent. Simultaneously, political parties thrived, survived, stumbled or faltered, often with little bearing on actual performance on the ground.

What happens in the local is not predetermined to grow into a national phenomenon. In many cases timely warnings and matching political action prevent local problems from evolving into national judgements. Yet, the local signals what may follow, or what may be realised if nurtured or not circumvented. The book dissects both the local signals and their potential to change South Africa’s political landscapes.

The book’s collection of research and analyses aims to close a substantial gap in systematic analyses of local politics, elections and government in South Africa. This book’s 20 authors represent the perspectives of many of South Africa’s most accomplished scholars. The collective project sheds valuable light on ‘the local, the heart of politics in South Africa’.

PARTIES, PEOPLE, POLITICS

SUSAN BOOYSEN

0096547809879

ISBN 978-0-9870096-5-4

EDITOR

EDITORSUSAN BOOYSEN

––

LOCAL ELECTIONSIN SOUTH AFRICA

PARTIES, PEOPLE, POLITICS

Editor

Susan Booysen

Local Elections in South Africa: Parties, People, Politics

Published by SUN MeDIA Metro under the SUN PReSS imprintFor Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung

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ISBN 978-0-9870096-5-4

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... i

Section 1: LocaL eLectionS and the PoLiticS of the LocaL, circa 2011-12

Chapter 1: Sideshow or heart of the matter? Local politics and South Africa’s

2011 local government elections ............................................................. 1

Susan Booysen

Chapter 2: Imperfect transition – local government reform in South Africa

1994-2012 ................................................................................................ 11

Derek Powell

Chapter 3: Further from the people – bipartisan ‘nationalisation’ thwarting

the electoral system ................................................................................... 31

Laurence Piper

Chapter 4: ‘Their vote is not unconditional’ – development, devolution and

local-provincial dynamics .......................................................................... 45

Janet Cherry

Chapter5: Municipal structures and finances – predicaments and

performance ‘challenges’ ...................................................................... 67

Werner Zybrands

Section 2: Party PoLiticS through the LenS of LocaL eLection 2011Chapter 6: Trends in participation and party support in the 2011 municipal

elections ..................................................................................................... 91

Collette Schulz Herzenberg

Chapter 7: The ANC’s performance in the 2011 local government elections ........... 115

Zaid Kimmie

Chapter 8: A party for all the people? The DA and the 2011 local elections ............. 133

Zwelethu Jolobe

Chapter 9: IFP versus NFP – opening new spaces in once-no-go KwaZulu-Natal .... 151

Ndwakhulu Tshishonga

Chapter 10: COPE – grandiose entrance and micro-status ...................................... 173

Dirk Kotzé

Chapter 11: Small parties and independents – from also-rans to kingmakers ........ 191

Cherrel Africa and Garth van Rooyen

Chapter 12: Trend-breakers in local election 2011 – case studies of local

interest parties ........................................................................................ 209

Peter Schmitz

Chapter 13: Fourth estate or fifth column? The media on the 2011

campaign trail ...................................................................................... 229

Franz Krüger

Section 4: rePreSentation and ParticiPation

Chapter 14: Community life and securing participation beyond elections .............. 245

Imraan Buccus

Chapter 15: One step forward, one step back – women and local election 2011 ..... 261

Shireen Hassim and Kirsty Smith

Chapter 16: Subduing local voice – public participation and ward committees ....... 279

Rama Naidu

Chapter 17: ‘The ballot and the brick’ – enduring under duress ............................... 295

Susan Booysen

Section 5: ProjectionS and concLuSionS

Chapter 18: The predictive power of by-elections ....................................................... 315

Ronesh Dhawraj

Chapter 19: Voter movements between elections – linking the 2011 and preceding

election results using cluster trend matrices .......................................... 331

Jan Greben

Chapter 20: Conclusion ................................................................................................ 351

Susan Booysen

Authors ..................................................................................................................... 360

Index ..................................................................................................................... 367

I

Acknowledgements

This collection originated in the invitation I received from the Konrad-Adenauer-

Stiftung to conceptualise and edit a collected volume on South Africa’s local

government elections of 2011. With cognition that there is a multitude of studies of

national-provincial elections in South Africa, yet a paucity of studies of local elections

and the politics of the local, I accepted. The challenge was especially to unpack local

politics at the interface between citizen and government, to understand the complex

party political dynamics that make citizens relate to issues of political loyalty and

local government – in conditions of imperfect delivery and continuous poverty,

unemployment and inequality, as these affect selves and others.

This was to be a daunting but exciting task. I identified and recruited top-

notch established and emerging specialists and authors that would fill the slots in

the roadmap I designed for the volume. I am particularly thankful to the authors that

were bold enough to step beyond their immediate areas of specialisation and apply

their expertise to the focal areas of this book. To all contributing authors, thank you

for embracing this project as part of your research. Thank you for the original research

that was conducted and presented in this volume. With your contributions the politics

of the local in South Africa will be understood in hitherto unsurpassed ways.

I also wish to single out the two then-anonymous reviewers for bringing their

insights and eyes for detail to bear on this project. To Keith Gottschalk, University

of the Western Cape, and Albert Venter, University of Johannesburg, your detailed

assessments of the manuscript, wise overall advice on fine-tuning and concurrence

on the need in the literature for a book of this nature made a huge contribution. The

priority time you gave to the project was impressive. My thanks equally goes to the

anonymous supplementary reviewer who stepped in with invaluable reviews on a few

of the highly specialised thematic areas.

My profound thanks goes to Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung for the belief in this

project, and for offering the financial backing and administrative support to execute

it. The two workshops, pre- and post-local election 2011, in own right were analytical

events of note. Our chapters benefited from the collective insights. In particular I wish

to note the role that Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung South Africa Resident Representative,

Dr Werner Boehler, played in persuading me to be the editor. Konrad-Adenauer-

II

Stiftung’s Nancy Msibi’s consistent and persistent support for and facilitation of all

phases of this project had no mean role in ensuring the conclusion of the project.

Susan Booysen

Editor

March 2012

Section 1Local elections and the politics of the local, circa 2011-12

1

Sideshow or heart of the matter? Local politics and South Africa’s 2011 local government elections

INTRODUCTION

Local politics in South Africa is where variance and dissidence are displayed long

before these phenomena register on the national scales. The local is the experimental

field where new trends in party support are identified, where warning signals rise

about communities responding to issues of governance. The local is the incubator, the

hothouse, the wind tunnel, often the site of first sighting of things to come. Yet, what

happens in the local is not predetermined to grow into national phenomena. In many

cases timely warnings and political action prevent local problems from transferring to

the national arena. Yet, the site offers the signals of what may follow, of what may be

realised if nurtured, or if not circumvented.

One of the strongest expressions of ‘the local’ in South Africa is the concentration

of politics around local government elections. Local elections are the lens through

which it makes sense to view the politics of the coalface, the interface between citizen

and government. Local government election 2011 and its aftermath in the rest of 2011

into 2012 was a profound moment to take stock of the politics of the local. It was here

that issues of development and poverty, injustices and continuous deprivation, and

deficient governance came to bear most tangibly on the relationship between citizen

and government. It is in this local space that the South African government is most

Susan Booysen

2

LOCAL ELECTIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA: Parties | People | Politics

tangibly not doing very well. Serial initiatives by national government to turn around

the local have had modestly positive results at best. In addition, representation by and

accountability of the municipal councillors have been sources of local revolt, often by

means of community protest.

The world of party politics often fails to express the levels of ‘dissatisfaction

on the ground’ – there is a cushioning effect through direct people-governing party

(mostly ANC) engagement. The discontent evidenced in local party politics often does

not make it to the top of the pyramid of national party political standings. The ANC,

despite in all probability being beyond its peak in political power, remains extensively

hegemonic and dominant by a wide margin – especially when measured through

the national lens. Provincially, it retains its edge, with some exceptions. Locally, we

observe a wide range of contests, challenges, lapses and even defeats in as far as other

parties and processes undermine (or subvert parts of) the ANC pedestal.

South African politics is by now known for the fact that voters are often in direct

engagement with their ANC, expressing discontent and protesting against the ANC in

government, and then following through by voting for the ANC. Election time in South

Africa, for the bulk of the voters, remains the time of uniting ranks against a party

political enemy of choice. Opposition party support is not nearly the only way to express

unhappiness with (mostly ANC) government performance.

The relationship between government performance and voting on the local

government level in South Africa is not one-to-one, yet it is a closer, more direct and

exposed, relationship than what exists on the levels of national and provincial elections.

Party politically, voting on the local level is somewhat less constrained by central party

hegemony, ideology and sanction. It is in the local where the hearts and minds of the

people of South Africa are shown to a larger extent – albeit far from wholly – than

in comparable national spaces. There is more space for political-electoral dissent and

rebellion, despite these elections in many respects being projected as national events –

referenda on the state of government, or a mid-term check on the state of the parties.

The local derives space for political deviance and structural exceptionalism, compared

with the national-provincial, from factors such as:

■ Higher visibility of weaknesses in government, especially in terms of corruption

and maladministration;

■ More direct exposure of public elected representatives, and to some extent the

bureaucracy, to the electorate;

3

Sideshow or heart of the matter? Local politics and South Africa’s 2011 local government elections

■ Being the target of protests that expose – and try to hold to account – local political

and bureaucratic representatives;

■ Standing as evidence of institutional underdevelopment and lack of sufficient

human capacity;

■ Bearing responsibility for flaws and mistakes of the national and provincial

governments; and

■ Provincial and national party leaderships’ manoeuvres to manipulate (or improve)

the local representatives.

Thus, election results only tell a partial story – the story of electoral democracy, but

not necessarily the story that emerges out of the bulk of the people of South Africa

relating directly to their ANC in a democracy that runs parallel to the electoral version.

For now incremental opposition party progress – the Democratic Alliance (DA) that

has had modest support gains – has fallen far short of capturing discontent with ANC

governance. As national government struggles to get local government off the ground,

and as local government struggles to operate and deliver, trust is eroding. Opposition

parties are incrementally gaining ground. The DA, modestly sized, but nevertheless

the predominant opposition party circa 2011, is not the only beneficiary. There is also

some movement to community and left-activist parties, which are ideologically and

politically diverse. Some were distinctly to the left of the ANC, and not at a point of

challenging the DA for the status of predominant opposition. The biggest of the so-

called community parties are mostly parties with specific grievances against the ANC,

such as provincial border demarcation, and remain out of capture range for both the

DA and the activist left.

The central focus of this book’s collection of essays is the politics of local government

elections, as local electoral politics interfaces with local government (and government in

general) and participation in South African politics. Amongst others, the chapters link

the local (with regard to the specific chapter theme) to the national and provincial,

specifically because it is the local that helps us better understand the provincial and

national. The chapters incorporate select (back to 1994) historical overviews to help

create multi-dimensional analyses. The book presents the dynamics of local politics

and local government elections (in particular those of 2011) in the context of national

and provincial politics. The parts of this bigger picture emerge as the chapters roll out

– a case of the whole of the analyses of local politics being greater than the sum of their

parts. This introduction presents the outline of this whole.

PEOPLEELECTio PARTIESPOLITICSLOCAL

IN SOUTH AFRICA

PARTIES, PEOPLE, POLITICS

LOCALIN SOUTH AFRICA

LOCAL ELECTIONS IN

SOUTH AFRICAPARTIES, PEOPLE, POLITICS

Local elections in South Africa explores the politics of local government elections, focusing on how local electoral politics interfaces with local government and the socio-economic base of society. The time from local government election 2011 onward into 2012 was an evocative period in which to take stock of South Africa’s politics of the local. It was here that issues of development and poverty, social injustice and deficient governance came to bear most tangibly on the relationship between citizen and government. Serial and often unconvincing national government initiatives to turn around local government fuelled local discontent. Simultaneously, political parties thrived, survived, stumbled or faltered, often with little bearing on actual performance on the ground.

What happens in the local is not predetermined to grow into a national phenomenon. In many cases timely warnings and matching political action prevent local problems from evolving into national judgements. Yet, the local signals what may follow, or what may be realised if nurtured or not circumvented. The book dissects both the local signals and their potential to change South Africa’s political landscapes.

The book’s collection of research and analyses aims to close a substantial gap in systematic analyses of local politics, elections and government in South Africa. This book’s 20 authors represent the perspectives of many of South Africa’s most accomplished scholars. The collective project sheds valuable light on ‘the local, the heart of politics in South Africa’.

PARTIES, PEOPLE, POLITICS

SUSAN BOOYSEN

0096547809879

ISBN 978-0-9870096-5-4

EDITOR

EDITORSUSAN BOOYSEN

––