Party System and Public Opinion in Contemporary South Africa

Máster en Democracia y Gobierno

Departamento de Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Working Papers Online Series http://www.uam.es/ss/Satellite/Derecho/es/1242658791834/listadoCom bo/Working_Papers.htm

Estudio/Working Paper 162/2014

Electoral Behaviour in Deeply Divided Societies: The case of Contemporary South Africa

Carlos García Rivero Universidad de Valencia [email protected]

* Paper for presentation at the Research Seminar – Master in Democracy and Government, Autonoma University, Madrid; March 12th, 2014 Work in progress, not for citation or quotation without the author’s permission © Carlos García-Rivero, Valencia University.

Abstract

South Africa became a multiracial democracy in 1994, and a dominant party system was configured in the political scenario with the ANC as the main political party. Since then race has been the main cleavage at the polls. This paper analyzes South Africa's party system and public opinion in an attempt to discern whether or not it is possible to reconfigure the party system into a more competitive one. Results show the following conclusions: ideological differences among different populations groups are being reduced; race is losing weight as a factor explaining vote; class indicators are gaining terrain as explanatory factors and; although not in the short term, the split-up within the ANC and the appearance of COPE should not be underestimated. The study is a quantitative analysis that makes extensive use of survey data gathered in South Africa in the last two decades.

Introduction

South Africa held its first democratic multiracial elections in 1994 giving rise to a dominant party system where the African National Congress (ANC) has been and still is the main political party. Since then, the ANC got absolute majorities election after election mainly due to the absence of a real alternative at the national level capable to challenge the ANC hegemony and to the fact that race has been the most important cleavage in South African electoral behaviour. The result is a dominant- party system since 1994.

Dominant party systems are defined as systems where only one party can realistically get in office on its own or in coalition. This situation is or has been shared by more than 20 parties in Africa. The situation appeared to change in South Africa. The appearance of Congress of People (COPE) in the last elections of April 2009 from within the ANC, gives rise to the question whether a two-party system is being configured in South Africa or not. For this to be true race should loose weight as a factor explaining vote; ideological differences between different population groups should be reduced and the relevance of other cleavages like class should increase.

This paper analyses this issue in an attempt to discern whether or not the new party scenario may produce a stable two-party system

The research takes form of a quantitative analyses making extensive use of survey data. The structure of the article is as follows: First a presentation of the methodology and the data used; follows a presentation of the South African party system and election results, followed by the analysis and the conclusions reached.

Methodology

The research is a quantitative analysis making extensive use of survey data. Concretely, data from two sources: the Afrobarometer1 and the World Values Survey2. The analysis is two-fold, on the one had it is presented that different population groups have come closer in terms of public opinion and, second, the effect of race and class in explaining vote in South Africa.

First the election results are presented and analysed to illustrate the South African party system. Second, an analysis of ideological differences of population groups3 is made through the comparison of self-positioning questions related to ideological issues4. Finally, the electoral behaviour in South Africa is analysed. Concretely, a comparison of the evolution, since 1994 until 2014, of race and class as explanatory factors driving vote. Unfortunately not all items were included in all the surveys making more accurate comparisons impossible. This was the case of Afrobarometers 2008 and 2011 and World Value Survey 2014

The analysis has not been focused exclusively in vote but also in party closeness or identification (when available) because during the elections the electorate is under the effect of many factors that are not present in daily life and consequently their normal disposition may be altered by other factors present in the electoral campaign.

Class is measured in terms of occupational status, which is referred to a hierarchical structure of occupational skills, which ranks from the lowest skilled occupations to the occupations that require a very high level of skills/training. Again not all surveys include occupation in the questionnaires.

South African Elections and Party System

The formation of a dominant-party system has obvious and important implications for democratic consolidation. In a scenario where a single party can effectively win an election and consequently dominate, gives rise to questions on accountability and responsiveness and erosion of democratic principles and practices.

Since minority rule was replaced in South Africa by multiracial contest, election after election the only debate was about whether the African National Congress would go beyond the two thirds majority. South Africa has been a dominant party system, although this label has been generally refused by the ANC as it has been considered to be conservative and hostile (Southall, 2005: 61)5. In

4 table 1 the results of April elections on the national level are shown together with those held immediately before, in 2004, and the first elections, held in 1994, for comparison.

Table 1

The first conclusion we come to is the above-mentioned overwhelmingly victory of the ANC; second, the decrease of the weight of the minor parties, which are disappearing and the new party system is being shaped anew following the trail of other consolidated democracies.

One of the parties which is fading away is the historical IFP. Zulu nationalism, of which the Inkhata Freedom Party has benefited in the province of Kwazulu Natal, is vanishing. One of the cards the ANC has played with strength and efficiency has been the Zulu origin of Jacob Zuma6, enough to shift votes from IFP to ANC7. Concretely, the ANC has obtained 63.37% of its votes from the province of Kwazulu Natal, main stronghold of IFP, opposite the 47.47% it obtained in the 2004 elections. Paradoxically, COPE only obtained 1.55% in this province8, its lowest percentage in the whole country.

In the same direction, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) has changed from 1.25% in 1994, to 0.78% in 1999, 0.73% in 2004 and 0.27% in 2009. Patricia de Lille9 abandoned PAC and formed the Independent Democrats, which managed to get 7 seats and more than 260.000 votes in 2004, but now, five years later, it has shrunk to scarcely 160.000 and 4 deputies.

The scenario is, thus, reduced to 4 parties although, if the tendency continues, it could end in 3 because if the IPF votes continue being absorbed, it could also end up as a residual party. The only political party of the opposition which stands the reconfiguration of the party system is the Democratic Alliance which is even increasing its electoral support from a scarce 2% in 1994 to a 16.66% in the recent elections of April.

The COPE10, though not meeting up to expectations, has entered as the third party of the parliamentary spectrum and it is still to be seen if it will consolidate as an alternative to the ANC or if it will follow the steps of its predecessors like the UDM of Bantu Holomisa which obtained 14 deputies when it left the ANC. Afterwards it decreased to 9 in 2004 and had 4 in these last ones. Nevertheless, this time the split within the ANC has been made at the highest level, affecting a much higher level of militancy and with a clear ideological division, which could provide the party which is leaving, the COPE, with electoral viability in time.

In this context, arguing that the victory of ANC is similar to the previous ones because it has been close to two thirds is mistaken. The ANC has lost votes in favour of DA and COPE and the extraction would have been higher if it had not benefited from the problems of the Inkhata Freedom Party and from the exploitation of the ethnic origin (Zulu) of its candidate, Jacob Zuma. Without these factors, the ANC would have fallen much lower and the future will show if the ANC is able to keep the “borrowed” vote from IFP.

Zuma's administration and the ability of COPE to learn from its own mistakes during the electoral campaign, will determine if the hegemony of ANC is unbreakable or if it could lose, if not the government, the absolute majority11. COPE has forced ANC to act defensively even when the victory was taken for granted. If, under the presidency of Zuma, ANC government does not shift to more populist economic measures in the economic field and nepotism and abuses in the political area (abrogation of the separation of powers, tendencies to a single-party state; impunity of the president12, appointment of high positions in the judiciary according to personal and party loyalty, abrogation of the ability to control opposition, etc.)13, ANC will be able to confirm its victory in the polls in the future. Otherwise, the impressive brain drain of the country will grow again, the impunity of the governing party will increase the levels of violence and criminality as in other African countries (its northern neighbour, Zimbabwe, without going any further) and economic populism will end with the achievements obtained till the present, provoking a change in the electorate towards the new alternative which has appeared in this elections: COPE.

In any case, despite whatever the future may bring, be it the maintenance of the ANC in office or the loss of its overwhelming majority which it holds in favour of COPE, South African's democracy, bearing the possibility of alternating in mind, has been strengthened in these elections.

Against this background, it is now necessary to analyse electoral behaviour in South Africa to discern whether race is still driving vote or, on the other hand, its capacity to explain electoral behaviour is decreasing in favour to other factors.

Electoral behaviour in South Africa

The following table 2 and figure 1 show the ideological differences between Black and White people in South Africa14.

Table 2

Figure 1

The main conclusion reached is that ideological differences have been significantly reduced since 1990. In most indicators the differences between the two largest population groups in the country tend to reduce. Hence, if different population groups tend to narrow their ideological differences, it may be the case that race is loosing weight as an explanatory factor giving way to other issues (i.e. class). After centuries of racial discrimination it is obvious that race will continue as one of the most important factors propelling political and social behaviour but its impact may be reduced giving way to alternative issues as class, moreover as class and race do not match each other neatly as it used to be during Apartheid times.

The next step is the analysis of electoral behaviour in South Africa. The following figures present the percentage of variance15 of vote and closeness to party, explained by race and class. Due to the importance of the ANC and DA in South African politics and to the low N of other political parties, only these two parties16 are analysed.

Figure 2 shows the effect of race in party vote and party closeness, measured in terms of ANC closeness and vote versus any other party and ANC closeness and vote versus DA.

Figure 2

Interestingly, while in 1994 race accounted for nearly 80% of voting or feeling close to the ANC versus DA this percentage decreases to around 50% a decade after, showing that race is clearly loosing importance. The peaks in 1998 and 2004 may be related to the fact that those years where election years (2004) or close to elections (1998). In 2014 the impact of race in vote and closeness raises again, showing the success of political parties in “calling” for ethnicity as elections get closer.

Figure 3 shows the same information but using a class indicator (occupation) to explain party support and vote.

Figure 3

Where race showed a decreasing tendency, occupation shows a moderate rising one. More specifically, the figures in 2004 double those of 1994. In any case still the impact is small, as to challenge the hegemony of race as main political factor. As stated above, centuries of racial public policies leave an important psychological imprint in South African society.

Figure 4

Figure 4 shows the different tendencies that both cleavages, race and occupation, have followed since 1994. The crossing lines are the logarithmic lines that indicate the overall tendency. Whereas race is declining, class indicators are increasing its influence on party closeness and vote.

Finally, figure 5 shows the magnitude of the gap over the years, between race and class as explanatory factors of vote and party closeness in South Africa. The crossing lines show the logarithmic regression lines indicating the overall tendencies.

Figure 5

The figure clearly shows that the gap between race and class is enlarging year after year. Still after two decades of multiracial democracy race continues – and it is expected to continue in the short term – being the most important issue but, tellingly, its effect is decreasing importantly leaving room for alternative explanations of electoral behaviour.

The new competitor, COPE, has not fulfilled the initial expectations mainly due to internal struggles to control the party and a wrongly oriented campaign. The fact that this party emerged from all- powerful ANC gaining 30 seats in Parliament (of 400) is a clear example that a single party, the ANC cannot represent a whole sector of society upon the idea of belonging to the same ethnic group. As it happened with COPE, high-profile members of ANC joined this new project. According to public opinion polls it may become the third political party in parliament well ahead of COPE and Inkhata Freedom Party. Much of its success will depend on not repeating the mistakes made by their

8 processor COPE like wrong campaigning and internal struggles for power control within the party apparatus. In any case, the appearance of the new parties and the decrease of others like Inkatha Freedom Party show that race cannot continue as the only cleavage propelling political behaviour.

Overall, the analysis indicates that political parties in South Africa should incorporate more importantly in their strategies class cleavages. Affirming that race is not a powerful factor in electoral politics in South Africa is incorrect, but if the tendencies presented here continue, in the long term, race may be overcome as a decisive factor by other cleavages.

Conclusions

South African politics and elections have been and still are marked by a racial discrimination occurred in the past which is still present in the electoral behaviour of voters and has an important effect in the configuration of the party system. This has produced a Dominant-Party system being the ANC the most powerful party and the only one capable of winning.

In the last electoral contest a new party emerged, the Congress of People. This party was born from within the ANC and not only as a result of personal disputes but also as a result ideological differences. ANC’s hegemony in the electoral arena can only be shattered if the electorate is presented an alternative and up until now, according to the results this has not been the case. The appearance of COPE raised – unfulfilled – expectations and depicted a new scenario. Its internal struggles made this project fade however it has bee rapidly substituted by a new political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, showing that there is social room for a more competitive electoral contest driven by more diverse and complex factors as results presented here indicate that although race is still an important factor, it is loosing weight whereas class factors such as occupation are gaining terrain.

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Notes

1 South African data from the Afrobarometer from 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 data. Information about the surveys can be found at their webpage www.afrobarometer.org

2 World Values Surveys – South Africa 1990, 1995, 2005 and 2012data. Information about the survey can be found at www.worldvaluessurvey.org. Principal Investigator of South African surveys, Prof. Hennie Kotzé, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

3 Namely Black, White, Coloured and Indian population groups. Due to data limitations only Black and White populations have been compared.

4 Concretely, left-right ideological scale, Income inequality/equality; Competition is good/harmful and Government vs. individual responsibility. The issues have been selected according to availability of data.

5 On Dominant-Party system in South Africa see also Giliomee, Myburgh and Schlemmer, 2001 and on Dominant-Party system in general see, among many others, Pempel (1990).

6 T-shirts with the logo “Zulu 100%” of Zuma followers and the call to establish Zuma as the next Zulu king from the time of Shaka went deep into an electorate which traditionally belonged to the IFP. To make matters worse, neither the leader of the IFP, Buthelezi, nor its team, carried out an insistent campaign, possibly because they assumed it was their electorate and that they would stay loyal.

7 The ANC has also electorally exploited the investment, from the ANC government, in clinics and roads in the regions of Kwazulu Natal.

8 The region of Kwazulu Natal, reveals a great presence of Zulu ethnic group population and where COPE had to compete with the ANC and with the Inkhata Party. In the rest of the provinces, the results of COPE were between 7% and 15%.

9 Patricia de Lille was the one who, in September, 1999, demanded that Parliament investigate the case of arms trafficking in which Jacob Zuma was involved.

10 The new party emerged from the 53rd national conference of the ANC held in 2007 where Jacob Zuma was chosen to direct the party against Thabo Mbeki, president at that time. Zuma had been in charge of the vice-presidency of the government until the president Mbeki removed him from office for being involved in a case of corruption connected with arms trafficking. The case was discontinued by the courts when signs of political influence from president Mbeki were found. This decision made the party also call on the president of the ANC, Mbeki, to resign. Mbeki presented his resignation in 2008, which meant the definitive fracture of the party in two segments, since many leaders of the government and of the party also presented their resignation in solidarity with Mbeki. When the party was created, electoral expectations, both from COPE and from its rivals, including ANC, were high since the dissidents expected a great result, as the hegemony of ANC in the country had been called into question. The rumour that about fifty members of the parliament of the ANC would move to COPE made the basis of the party tremble. in the elections of April, COPE had “just” succeeded in obtaining 30 seats (of a total of 400) with a 7.2% of the votes. The disagreement within the ANC and the appearance of COPE wasn't only a matter of power and partiality, but it also rendered evident the ideological and even ethnic differences which existed inside the party. The final break proves that the ANC could not go on representing all black people simply because of sharing the color of the skin and that other cleavages like ideology and class, sooner or later would appear in the public scenario as explanatory factors. Jacob Zuma is a politician who was trained in the armed wing of the ANC and who shared jail with Nelson Mandela himself for a decade in Robben Island, which granted him authority inside the party. Jacob Zuma has always been closer to left wing and pro-unions positions, whereas Thabo Mbeki is a defender of liberalism, as his economic plans (GEAR, for instance) have made clear. The change of leadership in both the party and government, now in hands of a more populist politician, has increased fears about possible changes in economic politics and property, although Zuma has always stated that the change is in the leadership and not in the political or economical direction of the party.

11 To name an example for comparison, in 1991 Solidarity obtained a massive success in the first elections after communism in Poland and years later it lost the government in favour of the former communists which had converted to social democracy.

12 The way, in which crimes (money laundering, tax evasion and fraud among others) he was accused of, were discontinued, left many perplexed.

13 The Economist, April, 2009, 18-24, pp. 13

14 As mentioned above, only these two population groups are analysed due to data limitations (low N). These populations groups account for about 90% of the total population in South Africa.

15 Nagelkerke pseudo-R2

16 COPE was not in the questionnaire when the surreys was conducted. Consequently, its support is not analysed. Actually its internal problems and mismanagement have made COPE electoral expectations reduce. In any case in the 2014 data COPE is introduced but as still is not available in previous data sets for comparisons.

Tables and Figures

Table 1. Electoral results in South Africa in 1994, 2004 and 2009 Party Seats 2009 2004 1994 ANC 264 279 252 DA 67 50 7 COPE 30 IFP 18 28 43 UDM 4 9 FF 4 4 9 ID 4 7 PAC 1 3 5 ACDP 3 7 2 UCDP 2 3 PAC 1 MF 1 2 AZPO 1 1 NNP 7 82 Total seats 400 400 400 Source: Independent Electoral Commission – South Africa

Next elections to be held in May 2014

Table 2. Self positioning and differences in ideological issues (Black – White) – 1990 – 1995 - 2005 (1 - 10 Scales) Ideology Income Competition is Government less inequality good responsibility Black 1990 4,67 3,43 7,8 4,63 White 1990 5,78 8,14 8,5 7,7 Black 1995 4,95 4,66 7,7 4 White 1995 6,02 6,7 8,3 6,4 Black 2005 6,85 5,36 7 4,87 White 2005 6,19 6,83 7,5 5,56 Black 2014 6,36 6,11 5,42 6,43 White 2014 5,80 6,26 5,38 5,49 Difference in 1990 1,11 4,71 0,7 3,07 Difference in 1995 1,07 2,04 0,6 2,4 Difference in 2005 0,66 1,47 0,5 0,69 Difference in 2014 0,56 0,15 0,04 0,96 Source: World Values Surveys – South Africa 1990, 1995, 2005, 2014

Figure 1

Ideological differences - Black-White Population in South Africa

4.5

3.5

3 1990 2.5 1995 2005 2014 2

1.5

0.5

0 Left-Right Income inequality Competition is good Government less responsibility

Figure 2

Race effect in vote and closeness in South Africa (1994 - 2006)

0 1994 1995 1997 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2014

ANC_DAclose ANC_DAvote ANCclose ANCvote

Figure 3

Class effect in vote and closeness in South Africa (1994-2006)

0 1994 1995 1997 1998 2000 2002 2004

ANC_DAclose ANC_DAvote ANCclose ANCvote

Figure 4

Race Vs Occupation in Party Closeness and Vote in South Africa (1994 - 2006)

0 1994 1995 1997 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2014 -5

-10

-15

-20

-25

-30

Race in ANC_DAclose Occupation in ANC_DAclose Race in ANCvote Occupation in ANCvote Logarítmica ( Race in ANC_DAclose) Logarítmica (Occupation in ANC_DAclose) Logarítmica (Occupation in ANCvote) Logarítmica (Race in ANCvote)

Figure 5

Race and Occupation Difference in closeness and vote in time in South Africa (1994 - 2006)

0 1994 1995 1997 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006

-5

Closeness Vote Logarítmica (Closeness) Logarítmica (Vote)