Gareth Cliff
The Burning Platform: The Big Boys: ANC, DA, EFF, IFP
Gareth Cliff and Phumi Mashigo | The Burning Platform: The Big Boys: ANC, DA, EFF, IFP | 05.27.24
Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.
- Okay, well, welcome everybody. And to those of you who are new to our little series on South Africa, we’ve done a number of episodes. Phumi Mashigo is my co-host, I’m Gareth Cliff. We’ve tried to put together a fair sweep of South African history, constitutionality, the political story of South Africa, both in the ANC and outside the last couple of weeks. And I hope we’ve been able to share some pertinent and useful and interesting information, at very least. I know that tonight we are going to be looking at some of the big parties and the parties that everyone is talking about. And there are also so many things that we’ve got to show you, which we’ll get to in just a short while. But I thought we’d open up this evening unconventionally by going to the questions at the start. Because if you’ve been following the series, there may be some gaps that we haven’t filled in for you, there may be things that you’re extremely curious about.
We are, what, two days off our election, but people started voting today, the special votes started going in. That’s old people, people who are working on the day, people who are at home and can’t leave their homes. So we do a day or two of special voting today and tomorrow, and then the polls open on Wednesday morning early. And we will have results start trickling in from the evening already. That’s usually how it works. They start doing it almost immediately. We’ve spoken at length to the IEC, the Independent Electoral Commission, during the course of Phumi and my shows that we’ve been hosting. And I’m feeling fairly confident about them, I think you probably are two Phums. There is a lot going on here that they seem to have a handle on. They seem prepared. There was a little bit of nonsense and noise when a couple of boxes with ballots were opened up and it was all reported on social media, and the IEC has taken swift action today and they’ve promised that the people who did this are going to jail. But we’d like to to start off- Yes. Sorry, Phums.
And this I think is probably the thing about the IEC, which is so amazing, right, is they have run elections, many elections since 1994. And every single time whenever there’s been hiccups, they’ve been there to educate the people, they’re very open, they’re very fair. And that’s why even with all of the noise, all of the parties, all of the chaos, I am clear that this is going to be a free and fair election, again.
I’m glad you agree with me on that because it was a worry and there’re lots of people who listened to this Lockdown University who asked in one or two the previous episodes, “Do you think the election will be free and fair? "Do you think that the ANC, if they lose, "will give up power?” And I think the answer to that is a resounding yes, which I’m delighted about because I would not like to live in a country where we have election deniers. I’m not pointing any fingers America, but…
Even Caroline in the comments is saying they’re much more democratic than the U.S.. Caroline, one of the things that after we watched the January 6th debacle here in South Africa, we had on our show so many people learning for the first time that you don’t have a body like the IEC that has a special court for any kind of misdeeds during the election, that watches over the entire election, that is a separate body from the government, from the judiciary, is an entire separate system whose job it is to make sure that our elections go off without a hitch. That was very funny.
Well, as I was saying, the IEC being just one part of this, I think the other thing that’s quite cool about our election here in South Africa is because we are not dealing with a population of hundreds of millions, we’ve got about 60 million odd people, and of those 27 million are registered to vote. They’ve printed so many ballot papers, ‘cause we now have three ballot papers in this election there’s a national, proportional representation election paper, and that one is for parties. Then we have a provincial one, which is for the parties and independent candidates. And then we have a provincial one that’s just for the parties. So that’s how we’re doing it this time. So a lot of people will be confused. I even had to think about it now and catch my breath and think, oh, hang on, is that how it goes? But yes, that’s how it’s working. We also had something really cool happen last Sunday. We had international votes and there may even be some people on the, on the session this evening who went to cast their votes from afar. We had cues of people around the block in Trafalgar Square-
Which was wonderful to watch. Wonderful to watch.
You know, these are people who may have moved over there for work, they may be studying over there, but they still have an interest in making things happen at home, and take their democratic rights here very seriously. What was cool about it is that I spoke to somebody on my show on Monday last week and they told me they were on a group of foreign votes for South Africa’s election and that group swelled from 20,000, four years ago, to 80,000 people this year round. So lots more people, very, very interested in casting their vote this year. That’s another useful bit of information. So we’d like to have your questions. We want to hear what you are most interested in and we hope to answer some of those questions this evening.
But I think also let everyone know that today’s session and tomorrow’s session is also about looking at all the names, the big names, 'cause we have a lot of people on the ballot this year. We’ve got for the first time Independents also contesting, but we are only going to talk, today we are talking about the top four parties that are currently represented. So the ANC, African National Congress, the Democratic Alliance, DA, who are the official opposition, the EFF, which is the Economic Freedom Fighters, who are the third biggest party that’s represented in our parliament. And then the IFP, Inkatha Freedom Party, who are the fourth largest party. We, Gareth and I spoke to the leaders of three of those four parties, but we’ve compiled packages so you can hear for yourselves also and see what their campaign looks like. So their campaign adverts, what they’re saying to voters and what their platforms seem to be. So my sound is a little unclear. Gareth, can you hear me properly?
I can. Perfect.
Okay.
“I voted last weekend in Trafalgar Square,” says Lauren. “It was so well organised. "Of course I was disappointed "that I couldn’t vote for the province. "So only one ballot paper.” Yeah, unfortunately, even inside of South Africa, if you’re not at your local polling station, you don’t get the provincial and local ballots. So that’s unfortunately the truth. But Lauren, well done, well done for going along. And I did hear that it took a little bit longer than people expected, but that was because there was a huge turnout, which is great. Of course, what we do in this country, which is different to what they do in Australia, for example, in Australia, you are, it’s mandatory that you vote, you have to have a reason not to vote. In South Africa, there’s no, there’s no effort put in by people who don’t want to make the effort. So if you don’t want to vote, you don’t want to vote. Unfortunately, as I’ve discussed before, it seems a lot of young people in this country are not that enthusiastic about voting this time around for a number of reasons, some of which we’ve covered in previous sessions.
All right, as soon as we have that video ready for you, we’ll look at the big four, but let’s just start off with a basic outline. The governing party. And the governing party for the last 30 years is the African National Congress, the ANC, which began in 1912. So they celebrated just a few years ago, their 100th birthday. They were overwhelmingly the party of choice after freedom in South Africa. Their highest ever election results came under Thabo Mbeki, where they got close to a two thirds majority, and really were at the height, the zenith of their powers at that point. Ever since there’s been President Kgalema Motlanthe, who stood in after Thabo Mbeki was recalled. Then there was President Jacob Zuma, who was also recalled. Then there was Cyril Ramaphosa, who’s our current president, and he was out this Saturday at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, which is our biggest stadium and rallying the troops. They call it a Siyanqoba Rally, which is a road to victory. That’s the big one that they host just before the elections.
But everybody had a Siyanqoba something of the sort. The EFF had one in Limpopo, which is where Julius Malema, the leader of that party, is from, they had it at Peter Mokaba Stadium. Their one is called Tshela Thupa, which is the Sotho word for, give them a hiding.
Oh, wow! Okay.
And then I didn’t see anything with the DA this weekend, but I did see Jacob Zuma do his final, because 48 hours before the polls all campaigning is suspended. So the end of the campaign season is here. No more campaigning. They can have people at the various polling stations, they can have party agents to watch, to observe, but they cannot campaign. So that’s it. If you haven’t seen the poster, if you haven’t heard their platform, the only place to do that now is on our podcast. You have to go back to check on some of the stuff that we’ve done to hear what they’re saying. Is the video up, Jess?
I’ll just quickly give you a brief overview of the other parties. So the DA, the Democratic Alliance, is the second biggest party in the country. You could call them centrist, but they’re probably a little left of centre, if anything, because in South Africa most things are-
Left?
Yeah, I don’t think you could call them a right-wing party. I mean, they’re very socially liberal, they’re big on, you know, on free speech and all kinds of rights for minorities and all of that sort of thing. I think you could probably say the IFP is a little more right than they are, but that’s because the IFP is a lot more traditional. There’s this kind of western liberal democracy idea in the DA than in the IFP.
So they have 84 seats in our 400-seat parliament. The second biggest party with 84 seats.
Their leader is a guy called John Steenhuisen who took over from Helen Zille, who took over, well actually there was Mmusi Maimane in between, who’s now a candidate for one of the smaller parties called BOSA, Building One South Africa. But the DA also reached their zenith of support when Mmusi Maimane was the leader. And that was just after Helen Zille was the leader. And before Helen Zille it was Tony Leon, that was in the '90s. He was the man opposite Mandela and Mbeki in parliament. The third biggest party is the EFF. They are relative newcomers, they’re only 10 years old, they started just before the 2014 elections, and have gone to just over 10% in the national polls, riding largely on a very populist wave. Their leader, a very charismatic guy called Julius Malema, who wears a red beret and the women in the party wear red overalls and gum boots.
And they are, I mean, they’re about, they’re about as revolutionary as a party in South Africa can be. I say that with tongue firmly and cheek because, you know, people would argue maybe that the PAC and those guys in their age and in their day were a lot more revolutionary. EFF are loud and they have made inroads in various places. They’ve never actually governed a single municipality though, they’ve never gained enough votes in any one municipality in any one ward in South Africa to actually govern it so as to run it as a government. But they are always the king makers when it comes to deciding which of the smaller parties they want to give their support to, and inevitably become part of that at a regional or a municipal level.
Sorry I am-
by the way.
[Gareth] Sorry.
[Jess] The video’s ready whenever you are.
Oh, great.
Okay. Fantastic. Before we go to the video though, I just want to say, because there are a couple of people in the questions that have asked, especially Tessa Shrem, “I was in Israel last weekend, "I learned for the first time "that there was no voting station in Israel "because our embassy is closed in Israel "at the moment due to the ANC "and therefore the government’s position "on what is happening in the Middle East.” And yeah, and this is, I hope that somebody takes them to court for that because I do think that for people who have dual citizenship or anybody that was in Israel at the time when foreign votes. It is actually unconstitutional for them to not be given an… Even without an embassy, they should have made a provision to give people who are in Israel the vote. And we’ve got a lot of South Africans who live in Israel, who have dual citizenship. We cannot, we really don’t have… There’s somebody else who’s asking why the ANC and the government is so determined in their current stance around Israel and Palestine. And we don’t really have an answer other than what we’ve been told and which is shady at the most. But we do have, this particular government does have a history of having a foreign policy that’s based on vibes.
Yeah. And nonsense. And we can’t really figure it out. There isn’t a clear pattern to the foreign policy of this country either. I mean, certainly under Nelson Mandela and probably Thabo Mbeki too, we had quite a lot of moral capital internationally, so we could walk the tightrope and be friends with Yasser Arafat and Israel at the time. We could be friends with Muammar Gaddafi and Britain and France, you know. We, in fact, under Mandela, we very famously were friends with the Dalai Lama and the Chinese. But that all changed at some point because we seem to have been downgraded both self-inflicted wound and something which happened in the international community. And now I don’t think that South Africa nearly has the amount of international clout that it did under our first two presidents. And that’s not surprising, they keep making the worst possible friends and the best possible enemies, which is not helping the economy, it’s not helping stability, it’s not helping a lot of things. But then if we start down the road of all the things that are wrong with the ANC, we’ll be here all night. Is our video ready to go?
Marian though, does have a really good point about she voted early today in Johannesburg because around the country special votes are open. So people who are incapacitated and can’t get to a voting station, I think there’s something like 300,000 people who are being visited to vote, whether they’re in hospital or at home, and they are early voting at voting stations if you will be working. So if you are in the media, if you are a doctor, a policeman, those kind of people, you can go and vote today and tomorrow ahead of the official voting day. Marian, there are 53 parties on the ballot this year. It is a lot. And I do agree with you, Marian, who’s saying, “Do you think this will result in spoiled votes?” This has been one of my biggest worries this year, is that with so many people on that ballot with such a big ballot paper and such a complicated ballot, and yes, a lot of the names are very similar, a lot of the colours are very similar.
So for those who don’t know our vote, our ballot has got the name of the party, has got the face of the individual who is the leader of the party, has got the logo of the party, as well as what’s the third thing? But there are various ways in which you can identify the party that you are voting for on the ballot, but they are very close to each other. This is one of my biggest worries about this election, is not so much that they’re going to be stolen votes or packed votes, but that they’re going to be spoiled ballots because people are not going to know how to find their person and they’re going to try and correct, they’re going to sign on the wrong person and then try and correct it, and that will mean a spoiled ballot.
Right. Shall we show everybody what we’ve got here?
Video first.
[Clip plays]
And the new leader of the Democratic Alliance is (dramatic music) John Steenhuisen.
Here he is the official leader of the opposition, John Steenhuisen. You’ve been all over the news this week, it’s appropriate to have you in now more than ever, but it’s always appropriate to talk to someone who is contesting these elections so close to the elections. And I know that there are lots of people already gearing up for a fight with you in the comments section, but you’re used to that, and there are a lot of people who are already standing up for you, even though you haven’t said anything that requires defence at this point. How’s the campaign going for starters? I see loads of advertising all over the place. Lots of posters. There’s big competition.
Apparently, pole, street poles are groaning under the weight.
Yes. Good.
Under the weight of DA posters.
Yeah, well look, I think it’s going very well. I’m very comfortable where we’re at in this stage of the campaign, we’re roughly about 40 days out now. And I think we’ve put in the work over the last two years to get to where we are today. Certainly all credible polling showing that we are going to the growth election. And I don’t think any serious analyst is talking about a post 29 May future that doesn’t have the DA playing a central role in it. So I think that’s a good place you want to be at the party. Certainly delighted that my party’s doing well in the polling. We certainly not like a margin of error party. And I think we’re looking forward to a good growth in this election. And I’m excited about it. What I can say is the DA has consistently grown since '94. We started at 1.7%, we are now in the last local government elections got just under 22%. We’re a party that’s growing and we will continue to grow in this election.
It receded a little.
It preceded a little bit in 2019 when the DA lost its way and started trying to become ANC light and, you know, start to prevaricate in some of the core values and principles. But we’re back on track, and I think that’s why voters are showing confidence now in a DA that is sure about who we are, sure about what we want for the country, but most importantly doesn’t just talk the talk, we are walking the walk where we govern and that’s the unique selling proposition.
What is your vision for this country?
My vision for this country is-
What is your vision for this country in the next five years. And what is your vision for this country in a 100 years?
Well, for the next five years, the vision is to get these basic things right. And that’s why our manifesto focuses on just seven things. You know, generally political manifestos come with a long laundry list of things, you know, that we want to achieve with everybody’s pet project. We’ve made the the seven key things that we have to get right in the next five years to make anything else on a longer list possible. Fixing load shedding and water shedding, Making sure we rejig crime criminal system to make sure that we can keep people safe. Making sure that we are able to lift 6 million people out of poverty. It’s not sustainable to live in a country with 30 million people, 99.97% of them are black or trapped below the poverty line of the country. We have to build a capable state that can deliver in a way that serves people and not politicians. We need to absolutely focus on fixing our education system over the next five years so that young children have a chance in a very changed world of work. The reality is, you’re not competing anymore with fellow citizens and citizens of a country you’re competing with AI. If you cannot read for meaning, like 82% of young grade four learners can, you don’t stand a chance in that world. So we’ve got to fix it.
Those are the things we’ve got to get right in the next five years. I believe those things are the bedrock to building a prosperous, open, more inclusive country with a government that’s working for the people, not against them, and where everybody in the country, regardless of their skin colour, has a fair shot at getting an opportunity to improve their lives. I think we focused far too much in the last 30 years, and I think that it’s not necessarily, you know, an evil thing that the ANC tried to do, I think that there was their way of trying to address the problems. It hasn’t worked as well as they thought it would. And I think we’ve neglected the opportunity side of the economy in South Africa while trying to manage an equality of outcome. Our focus on our policy suite, our economic justice policy, our soon to be jobs policy, focus on how you can create an equality of opportunity in the country. So it doesn’t matter what your skin colour is, whether you’re rural or urban, you get a fair shot at getting a decent education, good early childhood development, a chance of getting a job, being able to study without having your fees ripped off by NSFAS.
Being able to get out there and start a small business if you want to. Be able to live in a safe community, having infrastructure that supports your business and your endeavours. Making sure that every citizen has access to quality universal healthcare in the country. Getting those basic things right so that we build in a platform for future prosperity and growth. I want to be unequivocal about the DA’s view on this. The day that an ANC/EFF government takes over, it will be doomsday for South Africa. The imperative is to rescue the people of South Africa to rescue the country from the manipulators in the ANC who manipulate voters every election. And I think that the MPC for all of its warts and whatever its shortcoming may be remains, as we sit in the studio today, the largest voting block outside of the ANC and the most credible path to victory for the opposition in the country.
Can you hold it together until the election?
Well, I think we’ve been holding it together just fine. We meet every, the leaders meet every second Thursday. We’ve got a meeting this evening. In between that we have a technical team and a marketing team and a policy team that meet in the preceding week. And I think there’s been a remarkable process of synergizing 11 parties’ approaches into these documents that we’ve been releasing about what our priorities would be in government, how we would end load shooting, how we’d keep people safe, how we would build a capable civil service. And I think that-
I imagine the practical stuff is easy enough ‘cause we can all see what needs doing. Is there a lot of ideology in those conversations or very little?
Look, I think that the the big difference here is that, and this is why the first section of the multi-party charter meeting at Empress Palace was to focus on values and principles. Do we all agree that these are the core values and principles that are common to all of our parties and, you know, and can we unite around those? And that’s the agreement, and that’s where it comes in. So yes, we will have differences on the periphery, probably have different view to the ACDP on a variety of issues. Differences with Herman and Action SA on immigration. But on the core things that we need to get right over the next five years, I believe there’s complete unanimity and I think it’s reflected in those synergized offers that we’ve now put before the people of South Africa to say, “Look, we’ve put aside our differences, "we’ve united, we now need you to come "and unite behind us to get us over that 50% plus one mark.” And that is the focus for us over the next couple of weeks as we lead into the election. I’m not interested in leading factions and fractions.
The point of the DA is to unite and lead the whole. And that’s what we want to do. We want to bring people together, not around race identity, not around language identity, not around cultural identity, but around a coalescence around values and principles. Because I think that’s the only way we’re going to bring South Africans together at the centre, the rational centre, is around values and principles. And values and principles that we can all agree are the requirements to be able to build a stable society on, things like respect for the law, individual responsibility, individual freedom, things like getting government out of the way of citizens.
- [Announcer] In this election, for the first time in 30 years, the ANC will lose its majority, but they will do anything to stay in power. Imagine a coalition between the ANC, the violent EFF and the Zuma faction. Under this coalition of corruption life will only get worse. This election is about survival. Unite to rescue South Africa, vote DA.
[Clip ends]
So that, yeah, can we pause here? So that is the big kind of the leader of the Democratic Alliance. That is his policies, and we had an hour-long conversation with him and these are the most salient points that came out of it. And there was somebody asking about coalitions. We asked all of them about coalitions and you’ll hear what they feel and think about the coalition. John Steenhuisen did bring together all the people around, I think 14 parties, to be part of this multi-party coalition that they were putting together. And even though they are all contesting the election separately, they are hoping that they together can form a grand coalition of the opposition, I suppose, to out, to get more seats than the ANC in this election. Somebody else asked Marian’s iPad. No, no, not Marian. Somebody else asked about the coalition.
Marion iPad is asking questions. I can’t believe that iPads are already artificial intelligent. Better than we thought.
But before we go to the next one, which I think is probably a pretty fantastic comment from Monty Gowen who says, “I remember growing up in a dorpie near Grahamstown "at the height of apartheid, "and before every election the National Party "used to put a posters saying, ”'Stem vroeg. Stem wit’.“
Wow.
Which for those people who don’t speak Afrikaans is "Vote early and vote white”, as simple as that. And that’s where we come from. Monty, thank you for sharing that voter statement-
On that note, Phumi, I remember when I was a kid, there was a guy called Andries Treurnicht, who was in charge of the Konserwatiewe Party, and he had posted up that said, “Stem reg, bly veg.” To just encourage people not even to go to the polls.
Don’t even go to the polls. So the next one is the EFF, the Economic Freedom Fighters. A little bit of their history and a little bit about their leader and where they stand today. We can play.
[Newscaster] Julius Malema, one of South Africa’s most controversial and divisive figures is out of the party that brought it from obscurity in the Northern Limpopo Province. After a meeting that dragged on late into the night, the ANC Disciplinary Committee ordered he vacate his position as head of the Youth.
[Newscaster] The NDCA has also dismissed the appeal of league spokesperson Floyd Shivambu and Secretary General Sindiso Magaqa.
Today we are launching an organisation that is going to fight against crime. The organisation that is going to make South Africa a safer place. But this country will never be saved for as long as the people do not own the means of production, for as long as the people do not own the land. We have arrived where the doomsayers never thought we would. They said, we’ll never achieve 1% of the vote. They said, our organisation was formed out of anger and will never last. You disappointed them, you’ve proved them wrong. You make sure that they swallow a bitter pill. We cannot postpone the land question. We cannot postpone the jobs question. It must happen now. We don’t want to be told that we’ll get land in 2030. We don’t want to be told that we’ll get jobs in 2030. We want jobs now. We are hungry now. We want to eat now. That’s why our message .
[Newscaster] The party promised to create sustainable jobs, free education and proper houses. The party leader says it’s concerning that most young people loiter on the street without jobs.
We want to make sure that we open our economy for all to participate: we industrialise, we beneficiate in South Africa. And that’s where you are saying, “Where will the money come from to do all of this?” We’ve got so many minerals lined up on the freeways to Richards Bay getting out of this country. You must know that the day you take out chrome, put it in a truck and take it to Richards Bay. As it goes passing all places into Richards Bay, those are jobs that are going to be created in a particular country through beneficiation. So we need to beneficiate here in South Africa. We need to industrialise here in South Africa. We need to reopen all the factories that were created by Bantustan government. In the Seshego, in everywhere else, there are factories that have collapsed. Why do you open those factories? Those factories must produce the things that we use every day. Why should we wait for a plate to come from China? People use plates every day. We wait for toothpick, we wait for matchsticks. We don’t produce matchsticks.
Their farming continuous, it’s going to be protected that is food security. But they’re not the owners of the land who are just going to wake up in the morning and remove people’s graves and evict workers and violate workers as they wish. And there are a lot of farms, Sakina, in, let’s go to Waterberg for instance, you just have a huge farm called a game farm. There’s no game in it. Not even a smallest impala in that so-called game farm. And next to it there are communities that are living in a congested environment. Why shouldn’t we expropriate that land for public purpose and for public use and interest because we can benefit as many people as we want. Not all what you call farmers are really farming in those farms. And there are a lot of our own people who can farm, but they don’t have the means to buy the land because in South Africa in terms of the current arraignment, you have to have money to buy the land. So the willing buyer and the willing sale.
You might be a willing buyer with the money, but what if there is no willing seller, and the willing seller has left to stay overseas? In my ward in Seshego come from, we took the land, a piece of land, huge piece of land. We now are housing more than 3,000 families. When we went into that land, the family had abandoned that land and they were staying overseas.
[Newscaster] EFF leader Julius Malema, visited three restaurants at a Midrand Mall following reports that they don’t have a balance between the local and foreign employees. He insists that the inspections aren’t aimed at instigating violence.
Kream is known for having taken a decision to completely exclude the South Africans. They do so because they want to create an impression that Africans are taking jobs from South Africans. Comrades, there will not be an illegal immigration in South Africa. There won’t be a person without documents. Everybody in South Africa will be documented. Someone said to me, if you want us to vote for you in 2024, you must abandon this thing of foreigners. Now I’m prepared to go, now I’m fine. I will never take a platform and denounce Africans, I’ll never do it. If it means votes are going, let them go. Now I’m prepared to go home. But to take a platform and please white minority by pointing a finger at my other fellow black brothers, I’m not going to do that. When I see a Nigerian or a Zimbabwean or a Congolese or Ghanaian, I see myself. EFF can commission internal research to see to what extent is this thing hurting the EFF. But I’m not prepared. I’m not prepared to take a platform and say, foreigners must go home.
Corrupt activities.
Power cuts.
[Advertiser] Money laundering 51 million rand.
[Advertiser] Shedding.
Ramaphosa may have violated the constitution.
[Advertiser] How long are we going to complain about the same things?
[Newscaster] Joblessness figures hit a record high.
[Newscaster] The recent data on unemployment is disappointing.
[Advertiser] Too long have we tolerated corruption in jobs and jobs for favours. How long are we going to live like this existing without the land? Why have we normalised complaining about the dark, in the dark?
[Newscaster] The affected students remain in the hallways and on the grounds of the institution.
[Advertiser] They promised us free education in 1994. 30 years later, all they’ve delivered is a corrupt NSFAS and a broken education system. On May 29th, election day, vote EFF. Choose jobs, choose land, fight against load shedding.
You must be counted. You must be part of history. You must you make sure that you are one of the people who are going to deliver economic freedom in our lifetime.
[Advertiser] Vote EFF.
Well, Phumi.
Please pause it here.
You can explain-
Very emotional, very emotional campaign, talking to all the big points. But one of the things that you will see in our little package here is that Julius Malema is a notorious flip-flopper. So on one day he hates the foreigners, on the other day he loves the foreigners and he’s prepared to go home and not stand to be voted for he. But the one thing that they have been very consistent on, the EFF, has been consistent on the issue of expropriation without compensation. It’s a very contentious issue here in South Africa, and it’s definitely one of those incredibly emotional points. And I think for a lot of people who have watched what’s happened in Zimbabwe, this is a conversation that’s constantly raging in South Africa.
It’s about who has access to what jobs. You hear John Steenhuisen talk about jobs. Julius Malema talks about jobs because we do have the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. We also have a very high unemployment rate. So those emotional points, and I think when I look at the two ads, even as we are just looking at that, looking at the DA’s ad, which created quite a stir because it was a flag being burnt and looking at the EFF’s ad, you know, it creates quite an emotional environment I think for young voters in particular. What do you think, Gareth?
Yeah, I agree. I actually think that these election ads are always meant to stir people up. And I think the parties are doing the absolute best to do that at the moment. Both going to their bases so far, the DA and the EFF and telling them, you know, that the other one is very, very dangerous. But I think they both, both the EFF and the DA are agreed in the fact that they want the ANC out. And that obviously doesn’t make the ANC very happy. The ANC have promised a couple of things in the last, the last few weeks, they’ve brought in national health insurance, which is modelled roughly on the British NHS. And I heard the president just last week saying, “Oh, by the way, we’ll throw in free funerals.” And you know how important that is.
No!.
Yes.
No Gareth! He said, free. Yes. I promise you he said, “The NHI will also cover your funeral.” And people believe him. I mean, there’s just no way this will be implemented. There’s no way it can be, it’s unsustainable from the ground up. It’s a disastrous idea. But people believe it because have nothing then the promise of anything is better than nothing. And this is what he’s doing.
I think we are going to have, we’re running a little bit late and I think we’re going to have enough time to do the IFP and we’re not going to do the ANC I think we, everybody knows what the ANC is and what the ANC stands for. And so let’s do the IFP, which I think is also quite an interesting one to look at. And then we’ll do a little bit of a wrap up and a Q&A afterwards. Thank you.
Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
Has passed away at the age of 95.
Things are worse than five years ago in South Africa. The economy is barely growing and unable to create job opportunities. The call for change is .
And president Hlabisa is firmly at the helm of the IFP and we’re leading a solid campaign and we are quite confident that if do the things that we have committed ourselves to do and we execute our plans, we should have a good election. Obviously, it’s all about the hard work, and the lifelong commitment that Prince Buthelezi gave was hard work. And so that’s what we’re doing. Obviously, it’s not just about the individual, it’s also the policy proposition we’re placing on the table. The party’s growing, you know, right now the Office of the Secretary General has got a backlog of some over 1,000 branches that need to be inaugurated. And why we’re not moving at a fast pace is because we actually in election mode. Secondly is that the succession planning in the party, as far as we are concerned, has been very stable. You’ll recall Prince Buthelezi led the party for 44 years. So it’s not going to be an overnight transition, you need to create familiarity for the structures-
The top story that our IFP supporters are appealing to the party to address unemployment should it voted into power at this year’s general election.
As far as we are concerned continues to do good work. And I think that he’s the man for the moment and the man for these times, understanding that this is a transition period.
We are talking about a, not just a growing IFP, but also ‘cause we see the by-elections, we talk about them with Gareth all the time, but also that you are beginning to resonate. You see yourselves resonating to a wider audience. So how do you see your chances going into this election? Where are you pegging yourselves?
We not, whatchamacall, this thing of targets and so on. Oh, we need to register growth, and we need to be able to exercise influence in whatever arrangement, let me call it that, because some people prefer the term coalition, some prefer cooperation, whatever you call it, the arrangement, we need a sizable influence there. So the IFP definitely needs to move from the 14 seats that we have. Also, we as a party believe that our expansion project is going to take a lot of us as well. So that is why you are finding campaigning running parallel to the mobilisation of structures so that we grow. Let me make one example because I’m reminded on what you’re saying, the expansion and what Azalia said. Many years ago, somebody said to me, I don’t look IFP and what, and I said, and I said, “What does that mean?” And they said, “Well, you’re young "and the IFP is for old people.” So amongst others, the whole drive has been about changing perceptions around the IFP.
[Gareth] There was a comment about you earlier, someone said, oh, they really like the sound of you, but what are you doing in an old party? So it’s to your point.
Well, I mean the party is not old at all now if you look at our membership, the current stats of membership and the SG was supposed to be releasing the numbers because the growth is there, is that just over 80% of IFP members are young people. So if you, I mean, and if you go to any activity that you are doing, the IFP is really growing in that space. You see the only difference with the IFP, and probably other parties, is that we are not quick on the draw, deliberately so, of, you know, these aggressive public campaigns because we are still rebuilding structures.
What are your top three priorities that you think voters should be paying attention to?
It’s a conveyor belt, right. If you’re going to be in making an investment into young people in terms of education, you’re going to have NSFAS, by the way, so you’ve got all these graduates. When I’m graduated and you’ve paid money, me sitting at home is wasteful expenditure to the state because the whole point is that invest in me so that I can be productive and be able to contribute to the tax base and so on and so forth. So for us, the economy and jobs are of critical importance. The whole notion, and probably like a refrain in societal discourse, but we must create a conducive and enabling environment for businesses to operate. What does that mean?
What does that mean?
We need to fix the electricity right. Load shedding is the hindrance and the deterrent for investment and growth. So for us, the energy mix that is very, very important. Independent power producers, we need to move with heightened speed in that. Coal remains the backbone of the energy supply. You need to be able to cultivate the necessary skills, knowledge, and expertise, which means you need to revamp the education system. In fact, we believe that we need to open up more spaces for education.
Secondly is the issue of crime, right, because we believe that a crime in itself is taking away from society. So I know that crime may be seen as the violent crimes, but drugs, human trafficking, child trafficking, cross-border crimes and so on and so forth, all of them combined are making it very, very difficult for there to be any sense of stability in the country. And you are going to have a runaway train of a society where people will end up taking defences into their own hands. So we’re calling for a devolution of policing powers, functions and responsibilities to province.
To the provinces?
Yeah, to the provinces, and further to districts, area commissioners, as it was called then because a crime-fighting strategy from desktop exercise in some boardroom in Pretoria is not going to solve the problems of crime in uMkhanyakude and so on. But beyond that, we’re saying don’t throw financial solutions to non-financial problems. So is it a matter of money, or is it a matter of strategy, because you need to sort that out? Strategy informs your budget. So to say that we’re going to give you more money, but without a strategy, for us, it doesn’t work. So that is area number two. And then thirdly for us, it’s the issue of access and accessibility to everything and anything.
So your infrastructure, spatial planning, human settlements, all those things are important. It’s about fixing infrastructure. It’s about ensuring that you fix the railway lines. Those are the basic things, your road to rail. I often come to Johannesburg will drive up from Durban to Joburg. The N3 is, I mean, I don’t know how to call it, yeah, it’s a blocked colon, you know, and the risks and the dangers that are there. I remember one day, and this is a final thing, I’m just speaking about infrastructure development, so water access, reticulation and all those things, for us is to say, you need to go back to basics.
This is my duty as a patriot to raise the alarm.
[Hlabisa] The late IFP founder, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, warned us that South Africa is fast becoming a failed state.
[Ntuli] The IFP is the solution. It is possible to still rebuild South Africa.
[Gwala] We believe in ethical, moral, and servant leadership.
[Mthethwa] We’ll prioritise fixing the economy and creating jobs for-
Okay, I don’t know why this is giving us this problem, but yeah, let’s pause it and then we’ll stop with the videos now. And Gareth just, so can we have the back screen with Gareth. Gareth, I think even the IFP, somebody asked the question about how much tribalism and tribal identities are going to play a role in this election. The IFP is the fourth largest party, it has been declining, they’ve been there since 1994, but they have 14 seats in the National Assembly, and they are primarily a Zulu party, they do very well in KwaZulu-Natal, where the bulk of the population are Zulu speakers. They do very well in Mpumalanga, where the bulk of the population are Nguni-speaking. So Zulu, Swati, Ndebele and that’s who they have been in, and that’s the space they’ve been in. Their founder recently died.
So this is the first election that they will be contesting without the founder of their party, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi. And it’ll be interesting to see how they do. But according to Mkhuleko, who’s one of their senior members, also a member of parliament, they are now an 80% youth party. And so it’ll be fascinating to see how they do. But also, like all of the parties, they’re talking about jobs, they’re talking about crime, there’s nothing new in what any of them are saying different to each other. So again, you know, my biggest gripe has always been that our opposition really doesn’t inspire much joy or hope or even just a spark. They’re just so blah.
- Well, yeah, I think that the question of tribalism, you know, Phumi’s kind of addressed it there already, it’s not a big thing in this country. It’s been played up every election that it’s going to be a bigger, you know, a bigger deal than it is. And while the IFP support is mostly Zulu, there are also lots of people who like the IFP. I mean, I’m one of the people who likes one particular thing about their policy and you heard a bit of it in that clip, is that they want the devolution of power to local government. They want to see local government being treated more significantly and importantly than the national government, which doesn’t touch most of our lives in any real way.
I mean, national government only has anything to do with you if you turn on the news or if you don’t pay your taxes. Otherwise it’s really potholes, streetlights, rubbish collection, those kinds of things are municipal. And if the IFP is going to be a party that focuses on the local, then to me that’s an attractive thing. And I’m not Zulu and I’d be interested in that. So I think there are probably lots of other people who would be too. I don’t know whether they have the opportunity here to really shoot the lights out. You know, Mangosuthu Buthelezi was worth a lot to them as a very stable force. He was widely respected in South Africa, regardless of what party you were in, you know, he was like a wise elder. And as much as I like Hlabisa, we don’t know that much about him.
And you see it.
He seems like, a nice enough guy, name recognition, right.
Yeah, but you see it that they trying to address it, even in their TV commercial. The first thing you see, is you see on TV Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi talking about, and all of them are talking about, our founder, this is what we stand for. So it does play a big role. And this is an anomaly, I don’t think anywhere else in the world. He, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi is the picture that they have chosen to have on their ballot. So alongside their name, their logo and the party acronym, they’re going to have a picture of Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi instead of Velenkosi Hlabisa, Velenkosi Hlabisa. So that too, you know, just says how much of a larger than life influence he has been on this party and that they are, I think they are worried that not having him is going to stabilise their chances at the ballot box.
Yeah, I think their ads are all exactly that. It’s kind of, you know, do it for Shenge, you know, do it for Mangosuthu Buthelezi. So let’s see what happens. I think we’ve given you a good idea of what the three main opposition parties are all about. But that’s by no means a numerus clausus on what’s happening. And tomorrow night we will take a look at the other contenders, the smaller parties who are biting at these guys’ heels. And, you know, you could argue
Brand new parties, who’ve never been on a national ballot.
Right. And there could be an upset, you know, uMkhonto weSizwe, Jacob Zuma’s party, could eclipse one, maybe even two of the parties that we brought up this evening.
And if you consider that these three parties combined hold 142 seats out of the 400-seat National Assembly, that’s just 88 seat difference between the three of them and the ANC, the ANC holding 230. And anything with these new parties coming in and shaking things up, Jacob Zuma in particular, it’s a very close race to call. And I know we had the session last week, two weeks ago with Wayne just kind of forecasting and looking at those patterns. Tomorrow you’ll get a better picture of some of who, of who some of these new players are and what they stand for and why they do stand a chance of destabilising this cart. But I hope this picture-
I just want to-
Yes, Gareth.
I just want to, I just want to quickly answer Rita’s question ‘cause it’s come up a couple of times by other people here, and that is about the Iranian funding of the ANC. I don’t know. And neither of us have any intel on that. It is interesting that the ANC suddenly received a huge amount of funding, probably from overseas, we don’t know, but it’s speculation. So I can’t give you anything that you don’t already know.
But what we can say is, the reason the speculation continues to be so rife is because what we also have here is we have a, you have to declare your funding. So who funds your party, whether it’s individuals or organisations, there’re thresholds. So beyond a particular threshold for individuals, I think it’s 100,000 rand, you have to declare to the IEC, I-E-C, who has funded your party. If it is, and there’s a cap, so individuals can in a single year fund up to I think 15 million rand, and organisations also have a cap of how much money within an annual period. So one year period. And we have not had any big numbers coming to the ANC, and we know coming from the ANC, just in terms of them telling us who’s funded their campaigns, who’s funding the party, although the parties are also funded partially by the government.
So depending on how much allocation you have within the National Assembly, you do get funding, some funding, from the government itself through treasury. So that is some of it. But the reason the speculation about Iranian money is because of the decision that we have all been baffled by in terms of their stance on the ICJ on Israel and how far they’ve been willing to take it. And we have not seen any big ticket numbers in terms of declaring who has funded them. And thirdly, they were broke going into the session. Going into these elections they were broke.
They couldn’t not, they couldn’t pay the rent at Luthuli House, and they couldn’t pay the tea lady. So that just shows you now suddenly they have money. I wonder where that came from? We’ll buy your, we’ll buy your lodging a case for us at the ICC. You’ll get some money, and you know, we’ve just got oil money . Who knows? I think that’s the logical jump to make. We can’t prove it though. And until we can prove it it’s all speculation. That unfortunately is where we’re going to have to end it for tonight. And we’re going to have to end the questions too. But I hope that’s given you a very good view. And we’ve tried to include, I love the fact that we had those commercials in there from all three of these parties. We didn’t get to the ANC, but we’ve covered the ANC in other sessions. And tomorrow we’ll look at the small guys.
We’ll look at the new players in the game, new players in the game, and then you’ll be, when you are watching the election on Wednesday, you’ll have all the information. You’ll know the players, you’ll know their names, you’ll know what they stand for, and why they’re interesting to watch. So see you tomorrow.
Very good. For me, thank you everybody.