The SA Politics Thread Part 3

[CTBP]

You don't live here. Enjoy your DA run Capetown.
We are poor, we cannot pay for all of that DA goodness.

 

[wingnut771]

if PA get that many votes it is probably a coloured area. They are politically confused. There is no hope.

I want to see those coloureds vote PA again after the flip flopping to ANC/EFF.

 

[rietrot]

Now that's delusional.

The ANC wrecked the metros to the point, where the Moonshot coalitions are struggling to fix them. And now your solution is, to have ANC/Doomsday finally destroy the place because "then we can start over".

Start over with what, exactly? And how?

That's nonsense. Things worked before the coalition governments(basic services) now they don't. Mostly due to loadshedding/sabotage/criminality/whatever.

The moonshot guys are not trying to fix anything. Most DA councilors are still 50 year old guys who have been in save DA seats since forever. They are used to going with the flow under ANC.
Our councilor was okay when he could blame the ANC for everything, but now he is just shít when he actually needs to take some accountability/responsibility and get things done.

Getting garbage collection on time was a mission and a giant fight under the DA.
Getting potholes and sinkholes fixed is just ridiculous, they want to pay millions to ANC tenderpreneurs to fill a hole in the ground.

 

[ghaye]

WATCH: Mogale City DA's 'delay tactics' the 'last kick of a dying horse'? | The Citizen

The ANC and EFF want the Mogale City mayor gone.

www.citizen.co.za

The ANC wants the DA coalition dismantled over the Auditor-General’s report that flagged R28 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure under Gray.

Imagine we could dismantle a political party over fruitless and wasteful expenditure? Could this be our way out of the downward spiral?

Hopefully they do and loot everything that is left so that we can start over.

You'd better hope you are "connected" when this starting over happens. Otherwise you'll have nothing. There will be pockets of livable areas, the rest will be slums. I've been to enough African cities to see this first-hand. That's currently our future. Even Cape Town will eventually get there if National Government does not change.

 

[Agent67]

Let’s put loyalty to the ANC in perspective

Four authoritative political analysts answer a question that puzzles many South Africans: Why does the ruling party retain voters' loyalty despite its rotten performance?

www.vryeweekblad.com

 

[TheChamp]

Imagine we could dismantle a political party over fruitless and wasteful expenditure? Could this be our way out of the downward spiral?

Just an automatic desolution of the government and a ban for the mayor and his executive/mayoral committee for a year, banned from all council activities so that the governing party loses their majority, especially for repeat offenders.

 

[R13...]

Let’s put loyalty to the ANC in perspective

Four authoritative political analysts answer a question that puzzles many South Africans: Why does the ruling party retain voters' loyalty despite its rotten performance?

www.vryeweekblad.com

The rest of the article seems to require registration or payment, but he's right that for millions of people corruption is just a media thing and not something they see as an immediate concern to them. It is short sighted but most people aren't educated enough to understand the implications of corruption, the economy, etc.

Well, perhaps the state is not as absent as we would instinctively like to think. Government grants, low-cost housing, access to water, free education and the funding of tertiary education are all a reality for millions of South Africans.

 

[TheChamp]

Now that's delusional.

The ANC wrecked the metros to the point, where the Moonshot coalitions are struggling to fix them. And now your solution is, to have ANC/Doomsday finally destroy the place because "then we can start over".

Start over with what, exactly? And how?

The irony of the ones who are supposed to be the good ones who will save the city plunging the city into the worst financial position in the history of the metro, a result that the ones who are going to collapse the city never managed to get, fascinating stuff ne?

 

[ghaye]

The irony of the ones who are supposed to be the good ones who will save the city plunging the city into the worst financial position in the history of the metro, a result that the ones who are going to collapse the city never managed to get, fascinating stuff ne?

You clearly still haven't grasped the scale of devastation the ANC has wrought on SA. It will take take decades to fix their mess and that can only start when they are gone. As it stands they are very much NOT gone. So we are heading for a space where it will never be fixed.

 

[rietrot]

The irony of the ones who are supposed to be the good ones who will save the city plunging the city into the worst financial position in the history of the metro, a result that the ones who are going to collapse the city never managed to get, fascinating stuff ne?

That is exactly the problem here.

The city doesn't have money. The DA has only one solution throw more money that they don't have at all the problems increase the budget.

That is the easy, lazy and wrong way of fixing the underlying problems.

 

[rietrot]

You clearly still haven't grasped the scale of devastation the ANC has wrought on SA. It will take take decades to fix their mess and that can only start when they are gone. As it stands they are very much NOT gone. So we are heading for a space where it will never be fixed.

The DA still blaming the ANC is the same as the ANC still blaming Apartheid. It is getting old.

 

[Agent67]

The rest of the article seems to require registration or payment, but he's right that for millions of people corruption is just a media thing and not something they see as an immediate concern to them. It is short sighted but most people aren't educated enough to understand the implications of corruption, the economy, etc.

Shite. Didn't realise.

Here you go:

Why do people still vote for the ANC?​

Mpumelelo Mkhabela:

“Actually, there are several reasons. The first is that opposition parties have not really been able to maintain a strong presence in, say, rural areas. This is a large cohort of votes that opposition parties haven't really deemed sufficiently valuable, with some exceptions. The ANC continues to attract huge support in rural areas and is likely to increasingly become a rural party.

“Issues of survival [in rural areas], but also the way in which information is obtained and discounted in the mutual competition between political elites in rural areas, are not necessarily the same as the political dynamics at play in the cities.

“It is an electoral domain that the ANC has understood very well and has managed to their advantage since 1994. Even the IFP and the UDM could not achieve the same successes under these circumstances. Most residents in rural areas only have the ANC's paradigm through which they can filter their life experiences."

Frans Cronje:

“The concerns of ANC voters are logical, reasoned and with merit. They are not “crazy," “stupid," or “blind to reality". They are, in fact, extremely reasoned.

“Firstly, they deeply appreciate the substantial improvement in quality of life that the ANC brought about, especially between 1994 and 2008.

“There is a sense that the DA produces communities of the established and of outsiders that echo the colonial era. There is a sense among historical ANC voters that coalitions are so divided and so bickering that they will in fact be unable to offer more than the ANC already does.

“There is certainly also a fear of community violence among potential defectors, but more importantly, a denial of the benefits received from the current ANC electorate is not realistic."

Gareth van Onselen:

“A mistake that many people make when looking at the South African electoral market is to accept that all voters are constantly available to all political parties. This is not true. As a result of this misunderstanding, many analyses take the form of gross generalizations. “Black voters" is a good example. The assumption is that this is a homogeneous group. It is not. No group is.

“So, to understand any political party's push and pull factors, you first have to understand their actual available market. There is very little understanding of this and very few attempts – from a hard data perspective – to clearly define the nature of political constituencies and their potential for growth.

“We simply don't use things like class, education, values and income to build a profile of any voter, and instead rely on crude binary sentiment or generalization: things like urban or rural, ‘black' or ‘white,' young or old."

Dawie Scholtz:

“The fundamental question remains how to develop South African politics so that the economy thrives and offers opportunities to all South Africans. This means tackling or resolving the issue of inequality that is still largely defined in terms of race.

“The ANC has achieved incremental successes since 1994 but has largely failed to achieve a ‘better life for all'. The outcomes of this theoretical pursuit, especially over the past 10 years, have been horrific. The ANC as a political party is at the heart of the country's problem. A post-ANC solution is urgently needed.

“Perhaps this is my own bias, but a clear plan is needed to unseat the ANC and at the same time truly reform the economy to achieve growth and equality. The reality is that black ANC voters need to be convinced of this economic project, even if they are not liberals in the classical sense of the word."

 

[Agent67]

Shite. Didn't realise.

Here you go:

Part 2:

What are the alternatives?​

Mpumelelo Mkhabela:

“The reality is that the internal yet competitive narratives within the ANC are already creating a kind of opposition politics. It is already possible for ordinary people to express opposite realities. The ANC's complexity already allows for competitive votes, to a greater extent than the options offered by opposition parties. The satisfaction that competitive politics brings is not really associated with opposition parties.

“Opposition parties, such as the DA, rely on factors that alienate voters from the ANC, such as corruption and service delivery, but do not really offer material alternatives beyond the promise of better governance.

“A way will also have to be found to counter the romantic idea of the ANC as a historical liberation movement. Coalitions do not currently offer a convincing alternative to liberation politics. The perception that the DA will bring back apartheid is very strong. The same goes for the message from the ANC that a vote for other parties means that grants will be taken away. Until opposition parties succeed in swinging this narrative, voters will stay away rather than vote for them."

Frans Cronje:

“We don't necessarily need a ‘moonshot pact' or constellation of ideas. We need only a few parties that create the realistic expectation that they can govern effectively and bring about basic improvements in governance and the citizenry's quality of life. I estimate that from a value perspective, a third of ANC voters would have no qualms about becoming opposition supporters.

“Supporters of the DA, ACDP, PA, ActionSA, FF Plus, ACDP and IFP will support such a pact and wouldn't care less who asked for it, thought of it first, or guided it. It is the petty jealousy of senior politicians in minority parties that intoxicates such a pact. They are clearly out of touch with what their voters want and, incidentally, what ANC voters want. The ANC's support could easily drop to between 30% and 40%, resulting in a coalition administration coming to power in South Africa.

“My advice to the coalition partners is that periodic reproaches – and all that goes with them – should be avoided and a serious effort should be made to create space for the ANC and its supporters in future coalition structures. The battle cry of ‘destroy the ANC and grind them into the dust' is stupid and dangerous."

Gareth van Onselen:

“Voters perceive the opposition as indistinguishable in important respects. In politics, you need to communicate a specific brand and vision to people that empowers them to make a clear choice between the respective policies and political options. All these factors come together – along with a few other issues – to limit the growth potential of opposition parties.

“We therefore cannot say with any certainty what a particular political party must say or do to win new support. It also means that we cannot properly evaluate any party's actual performance.

“Take the DA, for example. The evidence available suggests that the party's ‘market capitalisation' is around 30%. The DA simply does not have a broader appeal. So, if support stands at around 20% (since 2019), there is only 10% potential growth available.

“The DA's performance must be measured against this [30%]. To have a market capitalisation of more than 30%, the DA leadership will either have to amend their offer to South African voters, or a number of South African voters will have to change their values. Both of these scenarios are possible over time, but not in the short term.

“The opposition market is therefore insular in many respects, with a few minority parties fighting among themselves for the support of a limited number of voters.

“The other smaller parties also cannot always distinguish themselves from the DA clearly and rely on a leader's personality or power-sharing in coalitions to make an impact. Volatile coalition governments and the constant infighting only exacerbate the problem."

Dawie Scholtz:

“Let's start with the DA and the idea of a ‘moonshot pact'. What is the DA's plan? Well, they don't actually have one.

“The DA is perfectly content to be the best classical liberal project possible. They have a strange obsession with the American ‘woke’ debate, which sees black leaders leave the party on a large scale. The DA hopes that support for the ANC will drop below 50%, while being satisfied with support of around 20% at the polls.

“This leaves the option of a coalition with the ANC or a volatile agreement with other opposition parties. No deal between the DA and the EFF will work and that means an opposition coalition that will uproot the ANC is unlikely. The reality is that the DA's plans will not force the ANC's support below 50%. And the end result is that South Africa runs the risk of an ANC-EFF coalition.

“No other party has a real alternative plan for the transformation of the South African economy. Addressing apartheid institutional inequalities and implementing a systematic transformation of the economy to provide access for all is the most important issue for most voters. As long as no other party or political movement is seen as a better custodian of the ‘transformation mission', the ANC will remain the largest party.

“A constellation of ideas willing to formulate a multiracial alternative that ultimately draws voters out of the ANC's traditional support base is the best-case scenario. ActionSA or Songezo Zibi's party [Rise Mzansi] has this potential. Neither of these two political configurations is without its problems, but we desperately need change: We're running out of time.

“My personal hope is for a larger and more meaningful scenario that ties in multiple political parties – including the DA, or at least the sensible part of the DA. I may be hard on the DA, but this party has fundamentally failed in the pursuit of an alternative to the ANC."

 

[TheChamp]

You clearly still haven't grasped the scale of devastation the ANC has wrought on SA. It will take take decades to fix their mess and that can only start when they are gone. As it stands they are very much NOT gone. So we are heading for a space where it will never be fixed.

You are the one in denial mnganam, the ANC governed Joburg and Ekurhuleni besides Tshwane, let's go with your superior logic for a minute, why is Joburg and Ekurhuleni not in the same position as Tshwane even when the ANC has governed them for much longer than Tshwane?

Why do they continue to be functional with even more frequent government changes than Tshwane even when the DA has been in power since 2016 and the Tshwane coalition has been more stable than the other two metros?

 

[DentistGuy]

And? So you'd rather opt for a Doomsday coalition, cuz "then things will get to the bottom faster"...

Accelerationism is stupid at the very least.



If only I could stay in CPT... But at the very least, my muni has a Moonshot coalition too...

In conclusion, cry.

Ah the DA shadow minister for VIP pit latrines is back.

 

[Agent67]

Ah the DA shadow minister for VIP pit latrines is back.

How's it going with the therapy, m8?

Are your vivid visions of Pappas finally going away?

 

[JuliusSeizure]

if PA get that many votes it is probably a coloured area. They are politically confused. There is no hope

PA will grow for the same reasons VF+ will grow and there is no party which can relate to the coloured community as well as the PA. The DA is not even trying to win back the votes they lost to PA.

When economies do badly, ethnic parties do well which benefit the likes of the VF+, IFP, PA etc.

 

[CTBP]

The DA still blaming the ANC is the same as the ANC still blaming Apartheid. It is getting old.

Lol what? The ANC are very much the problem of today, apartheid not so much, it is not only the DA blaming the ANC either.

 

[JuliusSeizure]

Shite. Didn't realise.

Here you go:

Frans Cronjes's analysis won't be popular here.

“The concerns of ANC voters are logical, reasoned and with merit. They are not “crazy," “stupid," or “blind to reality". They are, in fact, extremely reasoned.

“Firstly, they deeply appreciate the substantial improvement in quality of life that the ANC brought about, especially between 1994 and 2008.

 

[rietrot]

Lol what? The ANC are very much the problem of today, apartheid not so much, it is not only the DA blaming the ANC either.

You need to take responsibility for those things you do control