Supporters of the Democratic Alliance (DA), South Africa's main opposition party, sing and dance at the launch of the party's propaganda campaign at the Crossroads in Cape Town on February 8, 2004. The day after the DA launched its election campaign, the Democratic Alliance launched its campaign vowing to stop the Democratic Alliance. By creating a “genuine multiparty democracy,” it will become a “one-party state” ruled by the African National Congress (ANC). South African President Thabo Mbeki is scheduled to announce the dates for the 2004 general elections in parliament on February 9. AFP Photo/Anna Zieminski
U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy once said that politicians react to cold weather like pigs. They stand in a circle with their noses between the hind legs of the pig in front.
This is the expected outcome of the 2004 elections for the main opposition parties, but no party can be overjoyed at the results at the national or local level. The Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Inkatha Freedom Party will likely be forced into a more passionate embrace, while the decimated New National Party (NNP) will have no choice but to press its nose firmly between the ANC's hind legs. . .
However, DA leader Tony Leung's prediction that this election would decisively shift South Africa to a two-party system, pit the ANC against the DA, and drive the opposition to extinction has not been corrected. do not have.
Four of the smaller opposition parties – Bantu Holomisa's United Democratic Movement (UDM), the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) – have certainly been hit hard? , has not been able to improve on its dismal 1999 performance.
With a turnout of about 77%, the UDM, which had been hit hard by defections and factionalism during the parliamentary passage, had a support rating of 1.85% in the national vote, but PAC's support remained stable at less than 1. %. The ACDP, which likes to call itself South Africa's fastest-growing opposition party, had an approval rating of 1.82%. Most ominously for the UDM, it was expected to lose half its support in the polls to the Eastern Cape provincial parliament, which had been the official opposition party since 1999. The poll showed 5.71%, lower than the DA's 9.97%.
leon's prophecy email and guardian If Martinus van Schalkwyk's NNP improves on its 1999 results, it will strongly confirm that “the moon is made of blue cheese.'' The NNP's collapse in national politics (from 6.87% in the previous election to 2.04% in this poll) predicts that an agreement with the ANC will be opposed by most of the conservative whites and people of color who make up its traditional base. It was unexpectedly dramatic, even for experts.
This effectively means that the NNP ceases to exist as a national political organization. However, some voters in the Western Cape appear to have split their votes to support the party in the province, with the party securing 10.16% of the provincial vote, but still in 1999 (38.39%). ) has decreased dramatically compared to
Therefore, Leon's DA must have benefited, as the NNP and UDM were almost driven to the wall, leaving smaller parties stuck in the shallows. Hmm, no.
Early Thursday morning, with most of the urban votes counted, the DA appeared to be on track at about 17%. However, as the rural population increased, its share began to decline. The DA's share of the national vote late Thursday was 15.11%, with some analysts expecting the final figure to be around 13%.
This does not justify Mr Leong's earlier claim to the M&G that his party has “grown a lot”, and falls short of the 16.43% polled for the Democratic Party and NNP combined in 1999. The DA leader must have been aiming to wipe out the NNP in 1999. He won support, and in his funniest fantasies he might have fantasized about getting about 20% of the vote.
What went wrong? A minor factor may have been Peter Mulder's Vryheisfront Plus, which rallied in Platteland and eroded the right-wing support the DA had gained through its “Fight Back'' campaign in 1999. The national poll for VF Plus was 1.32% (compared to 0.8% in 1999), but its inroads into white Afrikaner areas were more pronounced, for example in the Free State, where it secured 3.37%.
Mulder ran a sharp campaign that downplayed racial and doomed plans for an Afrikaner referendum, speaking the modern international language of minority rights and self-determination.
There were signs, particularly in the recent Bloemfontein by-election and Ermelo city polls a year ago, that the romance between white Platland Afrikaners and the DA may be losing steam.
Mulder's far-right reprojection may have resonated with many young Afrikaners who, while denying their apartheid past, are increasingly seeking a home in ethnic politics that the NNP and DA cannot provide.
Another threat to the DA's work is, of course, Patricia de Lille's Independent Democratic Party (ID), which commands 2.07% of the national vote and the colored majority provincial vote in the Western Cape. Approximately 8.77% and 6.7% in the north. cape.
It seems certain that the ID won a significant share of the white left-liberal vote, otherwise the DA might have been on the rise. Leon, as always, was caught between pandering to the right among whites and people of color and preserving the traditionally liberal constituency of Congress, especially a right-leaning campaign that supported the death penalty. by deploying it, exposing his left wing. It is possible that many supporters of the “Suzmanite” DA took refuge in De Lille.
The ID may also have wiped out many colored NNP supporters in the Western and Northern Cape. They could not accept Van Schalkwyk's mercenary surrender to the ruling party, and were drawn to De Lille as both a leader of color and a prominent citizen. A person with an active and anti-ANC image.
Even without the De Lille factor, the DA would not have won the Western Cape. By late Thursday, the ANC had won 40.19% of the state vote. Adding in the NNP's vote share of 10.16%, the ANC-NNP coalition government would be just over the 50% mark.
However, it is reasonable to assume that most of the ID votes were taken from the DA or from disaffected NNP voters who would swell the DA's ranks. The implication is that the battle for the Western Cape would have been much closer had De Lille not “putted it in the cuckoo”.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC won 72.22% of the provincial vote, with 42.36% for the ANC, 37.86% for the IFP and 11.49% for the DA. Nationally, IFP support fell from 8.58% to 5.09% by late Thursday, reflecting the party's continued difficulty in shedding its image as a violence-prone Zulu organization. ing.
No matter how you look at it, the 2004 election suggests that South Africa's opposition remains as fragmented as it was in 1999, with its main forces treading water or losing ground over the past five years. There is.
And it would be a mistake to read too much into ID's emergence as a bona fide electoral force, as opposed to a spoiler that draws support from other opposition groups. ID only got him just over 2% of the national vote, and like the UDM, there is a good chance that voters will be dissatisfied with his ID. However, nationally he performed slightly better than the NNP.
The fact is that the ANC has not made such a fatal mistake in government as to step into the opposition party. Elections are not won or lost by foreign policy. In other words, Zimbabwe is not an issue in the election. Corruption among public officials has not progressed to a sufficient level. And the ruling party retreated from the HIV/AIDS issue in time to avoid major damage in the polls.
For the opposition parties, the Great Freeze is not over yet. Until the opportunity arises, they have little choice but to huddle together and keep their noses warm.
