Loyalty vs Delivery: Local Government election fever

I agree with her views, but I find myself continually asking "In South Africa, what will make a voter change from one party to another, and in particular, from the ANC to another?"

(Throughout this newsletter I will refer to the ANC and the DA; The Ruling Party and the Official Opposition. In no way am I trying to promote the one over the other. I hold no brief for either. I am trying to understand and debate voter behaviour).

There are two issues here – party loyalty and voter experience. Loyalty has to do with sentiment, delivery with the experiential consequence of voting. Which of these informs voter bahaviour? Is our democracy maturing? Are we moving from sentimental voting behaviour to experiential voting behaviour?

For close on a 100 years the ANC has stood for freedom, freedom from oppression, freedom from exclusion, freedom from racism, freedom from sexism, and freedom from poverty. The Freedom Charter was born out of this quest, and for close on 75 years the ANC fought this freedom battle. Many people became heroes as the martyred themselves on this cry for African freedom. Loyalty to the Party, the Freedom Charter and the Leadership became ingrained in the hearts of the majority of our population.

"The ANC will always be my home, no matter what" is often said.

During the same 100 years our liberal institutions, our media, our opposition parties, our banned political organisations have had a common enemy – the architects of Apartheid and Apartheid itself. Opposition was about morality, there was abroad consensus on what was right and what was wrong. There was indeed a ‘cause’ around which the various opposition camps gathered and consolidated their voice – "this illegitimate, undemocratic, racist, exclusionist regime must be done away with."

"It is a cause for which I am prepared to die," said our beloved Madiba.

Then along came 1994, after four years of negotiation, violence and massive uncertainty our new democracy was born. Freedom was upon us, the Nationalist regime and their Apartheid policies were gone. We had peace, we had a new Constitution, we had rights, we had a future, and we were free.

So who then became the enemy, and what of loyalty and experience?

In the first election the same liberal institutions, the same media, and the same opposition parties told us the enemy was the ANC winning a 70% constitution changing majority. In the second election, when the Constitution had not been changed, the enemy was the anti-white Mbeki. In the third election, when the whites hadn’t been driven into the sea, it was an ineffectual Mbeki and a failing government, and in the fourth election, after five years of unbelievable prosperity, it was "Stop Zuma".

Would any of these campaigns have resulted in a significant swing of voter sentiment? Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the ANC vote has slipped only marginally.

Why?

It would seem there is no longer a "cause", a "clarion cry", a "compelling call" - the old enemy has been vanquished. The consequence being that our liberal institutions, our media and our opposition parties, in their quest to find a new enemy, spend more and more time vilifying individuals, gossiping about personal circumstances, and trying to expose embarrassing scandals. No problem with this, except that most citizens couldn’t be bothered.

Under these circumstances sentimental party loyalty will hold sway.

As a voter commented "’Vote DA to Win’ is a call that means if I vote DA ‘to win’ then I am voting for the ANC, the party that fought for 75 years for my freedom, ‘to lose’. I cannot do that. It is an act of betrayal. I know that there is corruption, that service delivery is poor, that my old school is in disrepair, that I still don’t have a job and that I am still living in poverty. But I will remain loyal to the party and the people that brought me freedom."

"Whereas" the voter commented "’A vote for delivery’ is a call that means that if I vote for another party ‘for delivery’ at a local level then I am sending a message to my party, that they must catch a wake-up, I am angry that they have ‘not delivered’. I can do that. It is an act of teaching my party a lesson. ‘Get delivery right and you will have my vote again’. It is not an act of disloyalty."

A vote for delivery is about experience and not sentiment.

In this Local Government election ’delivery’ should be our cause, our clarion cry, our compelling call. Our energies should be focused on what was promised, what has been delivered, and where the gaps are. All parties can do this. Every local municipality should have a scorecard so that voters can see the extent to which they have been short changed by the party in power. The opposition party political campaigners should be focusing on what they will deliver, not a personal attack on who and what has not delivered. Then the electorate can make an informed vote, not one that depends on loyalty, not one that is tarnished by personality smears, but one that focuses on delivery.

Helen Zille reminds us, "We also have to overcome the racial divisions that still exist in our politics and in our society. Race, rather than policies and performance, is still a major determinant of voting behaviour (read loyalty – my words). This has to change. A country can never be considered a consolidated democracy if elections are little more than a racial census, because power will never change hands through the ballot box."

I agree, but our campaigns, on both sides over the past 16 years have been characterised by focusing on race, on personalities, on one-upmanship, and on ‘gevaar’. Under these circumstances the loyalty sentiment of our vote will be virtually all that matters.

Helen Zille continues, "According to Professor Paul Collier there are two ways parties can grow in complex plural societies. The easy way is to play the race card. The hard way is to win people’s trust through representing their interests and delivering services for all."

With local elections on May 18, I hope that the delivery experience will be the focus of all political parties, that their campaigns will back this up, and that the electorate will vote for the party they think can best deliver. Only when we start getting voters to think about their delivery experience will we have any hope of shifting their loyalty sentiment.

In the UK and the USA this has largely happened, people vote based on their experience of the governing party, there can be massive swings of voting patterns from one election to the next, and between one party and another. In South Africa we haven’t got there yet. Too much of our electioneering focuses on sentiment, and not enough on experience. "Stop Zuma", "Coloureds need to spread themselves out", are classical examples of this. "Better delivery" will have voters thinking before they faithfully make their X where they had made it four times before.

Sentimental party loyalty, however well intended, is not a building block of democratic consolidation.