I sometimes despair about the naivety of the liberal South African media and politicians and their near-hysteria of getting rid of the ANC and Jacob Zuma in particular. It is not going to happen. It just doesn’t make any sense for the ANC to get rid of Jacob Zuma a mere six months before their annual congress in December.
The ANC will move in December. After that they will consolidate their power base under the new leadership, and only once that has been done will they consider an election.
Let’s look at two sets of statistics:
– Firstly the last national election results from 2014: ANC 62,2%, DA 22,2%, EFF 6,4%. The municipal results from 2016 still put the ANC at 53.34 %, even though six million of their traditional voters abstained. The Democratic Alliance held onto their 4 million votes, but because of the lower voter turn-out due to the ANC, recorded a skew 26,8% of votes. The EFF recorded 8,14% of votes (1,2 million).
– The second set of statistics, and perhaps the most important is the 2015 estimates of South African demographics: blacks 44,3m; coloureds 4,8m; whites 4,5m; and Indian 1,4m.
Now, this is where a shrewd reporter or politician will know his/her stuff instead of jumping up and down and creating a false impression that the ANC and Zuma will fall.
– The ANC is still firmly in control of South Africa, with the EFF as a strong back-up for Pan Africanism.
– Take the demographics of whites, coloureds and Indians out of the equation, because they are “opposition, enemies, settlers, second-class citizens” voting in majority against the ANC and….the ANC support base amongst black Africans jumps up to at least 70%. Now, go stand in a mall on a Saturday morning and look at the people passing you – SEVEN out of every TEN black people passing are supporting the ANC; the EIGHTH one is supporting the EFF!
Can anyone in his or her right mind even think that the ANC and EFF will hand over power to anyone as long as they command the majority black African vote? This, Mister Liberal reporter and DA politician, means that even at 45% of the votes the ANC and EFF will NOT hand over power, because they will still command the majority black vote. If you still do not believe it: look at Coligny, Knysna, Bloemfontein. Zuma and his successor and Malema will just declare –
“As black majority we will not permit the settlers to hold the balance”.
The second lesson from the above statistics is that 17 million people receive social grants. The majority of them are dependent on the ANC. Government employees and office bearers are dependent on the ANC for their salaries. Never, ever will the DA or any other opposition party get 50% of these votes. Never.
The ANC is tottering, yes, but they are still by far the most influential political party and they will remain that for a long, long time. One person, with the name of Zuma, will not change that. It is funny that the multicultural opposition parties in a multicultural system cannot see that.
Read the original article by Hannes Engelbrecht on Front Nasionaal SA – blad
South Africa Today – South Africa News
