Election Reflections
15 May 2019
A highlight of the unbelievably tedious counting period reported on by TV stations from Wednesday night was when I received a WhatsApp from one of my friends. Its picture of a smiling Jacob Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa embracing jubilantly, had Zuma saying, “See; I told you the people of South Africa don’t mind us stealing from them.”
The final result, with the ANC under Ramaphosa falling to their lowest General Election total ever at 57.5% -- 5% lower than under Zuma in 2014 – led to the president being hailed as something of a hero and a saviour.
The DA result, 1.6% lower than 2014 and despite a strong Western Cape majority, is being characterised by media opponents as a calamity and a disaster for the DA leader, Mmusi Maimane. Quite forgotten is the series of pre-election polls, remarkable in range, some showing the DA scoring only 15% -- 18%. Maimane has not yet been credited with saving the DA from a terrible drubbing by a strong finish to the campaign.
One of the realities of the campaign is that Julius Malema’s EFF had a relatively poor election result. They were on course to double their 2014 result but ended up with a fairly-respectable 10.79%. Considering all the polls that foreshadowed 12% of the vote or more, sometimes much more, for the EFF, the result must be a great disappointment to them in light of the inflated claims, the rhetoric and the noise they made.