inside politics

A thread: “Why Gauteng is so important to the ANC”. The following thread looks how central Gauteng is to the ANC’s 2024 national electoral prospects, and maps how dire the situation looks for the party provincially (with nice graphs!).

Why Gauteng is so important to the ANC

By: Gareth van Onselen
Follow @GvanOnselen
1 January 2024

This essay is the 2nd in an on-going series on Election 2024, for all other editions of this series, please click here: Election 2024

Let us start with the big picture. This graph (below) maps the ANC’s vote share in Gauteng, on the provincial and PR ballot, for each national and local election since 1999. Provincial elections in dark green, local elections in light green.

The ANC is declining in both but, as ever with the party, the more dramatic decline is in local government elections, where it has already twice dipped below 50% (all the way down to 36% in 2021). The question everyone has, is will the same happen provincially, in 2024?

We will get to that. First, it is important to understand how critical Gauteng is to the ANC’s general electoral prospects. This graph (below) shows you what percentage of the ANC’s total vote share comes from each province, for each national election since 1994.

As of 2019, Gauteng delivers the biggest proportion of all ANC votes (on the national ballot). 23.1% or almost 1 out of 4 national ANC votes, come from Gauteng. That makes sense in term of population density, Gauteng being SA’s most populous province.

There is, however, an interesting trend slowly unfolding, when it comes to the ANC’s national and provincial vote share: they are separating, as ANC vote splitting becomes more commonplace. This graph (below) demonstrates that trend.

In 1994, the ANC’s national and provincial vote share matched each other. By 2019, they had systematically moved apart, to the point where 645k votes separate the two. Put another way: over time people were losing faith faster in the ANC provincially, than nationally.

It is a more recent trend when looking at Gauteng alone, as this graph (below) does, starting in 2004; but the gap in 2019 was up to 245k votes, which is significant when you consider the ANC lost 180k votes in total in on the 2019 provincial ballot.

You realise just how significant it is, when you look at how the ANC’s total vote loss between the national and provincial ballot (645k votes), breaks down by province. This table (below) shows that. That 245k in Gauteng, accounts for 38% of all ANC vote splitting.

One could put it like this: Gauteng, more than any other province, is where the ANC is losing credibility at the fastest rate. There are likely two primary reasons for this. First, the ANC has already lost power in key metros, so the myth of ANC inevitability is broken.

Second, the ANC in Gauteng has been particularly disastrous. From Life Esidimeni to a spiraling water crisis, to unemployment (Gauteng being the industrial hub of SA), the province and its metros are crumbling.

That said, the ANC’s vote share in Gauteng, on the provincial ballot, is reasonably stable, hovering between 2.1m and 2.6m for 20 years. Those approximately 2m ANC voters are very loyal. But growing they are not. Thus, election after election, they are worth less and less.

This is best illustrated by the following graph (below), which tracks the ANC’s vote share (provincial ballot) against the total registered voting population in Gauteng. In 99 it was worth 60% of all registered voters, by 2019, it was worth just 34%, a drop of 24pts.

Essentially then, the same rule that applies nationally, applies in Gauteng: the ability of opposition parties to get their voters to the polls is going to be essential to bringing the ANC below 50%. But if they do that in significant numbers, the ANC will really hurt.

The decline in turnout in Gauteng is less precipitous than elsewhere. It managed 68% (compared to 66% nationally) in 2019. But as with the ANC’s national vote, there is a clear relationship between lower turnout and the ANC’s decline.

Given all this, here are six scenarios for Gauteng (not predictions!), using the current number of registered voters in the province, according to the IEC (around 6.3m). We start with Scenario 1: 2019 turnout (at 68%) and systematically drop turnout to Scenario 6 (at 58%).

For each scenario, there is a “good” path (green) for the ANC – it manages to get the same number of votes it got in 2019 (this is being very generous, but a helpful benchmark) and a “bad” path (red) – where it loses votes in a systematic fashion, as turnout declines.

Then, there is a comparison to where that ANC scenario relates to all registered voters. Finally, at the bottom there is a comparison to what happened to the ANC in 2021 (just to show how low the ANC could theoretically go).

Obviously, the total number of registered voters will increase before the election. So, this is all assuming an election tomorrow, on current numbers.

So, what does this show? Well, the “good” path (massively unlikely) shows the ANC vote share systematically increasing from 50% at 68% turnout, to 59% at 58% turnout. The ANC would need a miracle for this to happen.

The “bad” path demonstrates, as we have seen, a relationship between lower turnout and lower ANC support. For each 2pt turnout drop, the ANC loses 100,000 extra votes, from a base loss of 300,000. That sees it drop from 46% at 68%, to 40% at a 58% turnout scenario.

It also sees the ANC’s percentage of all registered voter drop from 31% to 23% (and seeing as it only got 15.5% of all registered voters in 2021, 23% doesn’t seem that bad).

This is the more realistic path. It demonstrates just how difficult it is going to be for the ANC to get 50%+ in Gauteng, in 2024. If turnout drops by just 2pts (66%), and it loses 300,000 votes, it is already way below 50% (45%).

Cyril Ramaphosa, as before the 2019 election (when he made a stream of unhinged predictions) says the ANC is confident of a victory, in Gauteng. “We are going to win Gauteng. We are confident”, he said in November.

On the facts, though, it is difficult to understand what that confidence is based upon. What we can be sure of, is the following:

1. The ANC’s 50% majority in Gauteng is on a knife-edge, and all ANC electoral trends are headed downward.

2. ANC voters are losing faith in the ANC in Gauteng as a provincial government at a greater pace they are nationally, but both are in decline. Vote splitting in Gauteng is becoming a real problem for the ANC. 

3. We don’t know if the ANC’s vote in Gauteng is imploding, or steadily declining but the two most recent local government elections suggest the idea that ANC has turned the tide is unlikely, and a rapid rather than slow decline more likely.

4. The ANC’s vote share in Gauteng, seems historically relatively solid (with a smallish slow bleed) at around 2-2.5m votes, but it is becoming dwarfed by the total registered voting population, and counting for less and less.

5. Thus, differential turnout for opposition parties (that is, their ability to get all their voters to actually vote, while many ANC voters stay away) is going to be absolutely essential to bringing the ANC below 50%.

6. Finally, given how important Gauteng is to the ANC’s total vote share, if it does implode in the province, it will profoundly affect its final national percentage. 

All numbers in this essay are drawn from: https://www.elections.org.za/pw/

This essay is the 2nd in an on-going series on Election 2024, for all other editions of this series, please click here: Election 2024