Battles for big metros heat up

The Gauteng metros have become the battleground for the country’s top three political parties – because they are lucrative, sources of power fluidity and it’s where the ANC is vulnerable, political experts believe.

The governing ANC, the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) launched their manifestos in the metros on three successive days last week – turning South Africa’s economic hub into
a centre of power battles among political parties.

Even smaller parties such as the African Christian Democratic Party launched its manifesto in Joburg on Saturday.

But Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape has become another target, especially by the ANC and the DA – because of being a hung municipality where there was a split victory between the two parties in the 2016 local government election.

Since then, no party was able to rule alone in the council unless it canvassed the smaller parties to form a coalition.

Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni were also run through coalitions, where the smaller parties were co-opted as mayoral executives in a power play between the ANC and the DA.

But there is a new player to challenge power in Johannesburg – ActionSA led by the former mayor Herman Mashaba. He is the biggest threat to the ANC and the DA because of his impressive service delivery record, anticorruption crusade and his popularity with residents and metro employees when he was mayor.

Political analyst Ralph Mathekga said parties were more attracted to Johannesburg because it was much easier to campaign in a dense area, where a party was likely to get more votes per square kilometre than in other areas.

“This is also because Johannesburg is experiencing a lot of fluidity – because Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni are where big movements had been experienced,” he said.

“It’s an area where, if you want the economies of scale as to how you want to stretch your money in terms of campaigning, you will target an area such as that.

“But it’s also an area where the ANC had shown vulnerability.”

He said the parties tended to concentrate their resources around the Gauteng metros.

The proximity of the three metros – Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni – further raised a question around demarcation and voting that Mathekga believed could be considered in future.

Another analyst, Sanusha Naidoo, said the area not only represented the country’s economic terrain but was a highly contested part of South Africa.

Naidu said the parties saw Gauteng as a nexus to launch everything – because there was no other way to explain why the big three did not launch their manifestos in other metros such as Bloemfontein and eThekwini.

It also had to do with how the parties had localised themselves in terms of headquarters. The ANC and EFF have their head offices in central Johannesburg and the DA in Bruma.

“It’s a discussion to have about where do you locate to when you contest an election,” Naidu said.

She said the notion that Gauteng was the economic centre of power was true because “once you captured that space you captured the economic heartland of the country”.

However, the analyst cautioned against putting all eggs in one basket, saying Gauteng was not the only centre of power, considering that the Western Cape was contemplating launching its own stock exchange for agricultural
products.

“Therefore, political parties needed to think out of the box in terms of how they managed their political footprints outside of the big metros,” she said.

– ericn@citizen.co.za