ANTHONY BUTLER: ANC’s depleted war chest means less vote-buying

The party finds itself unable to do what it used to to ensure it draws voters

First published in Business Day

03 MAY 2024

As parties ramp up their activity in the final weeks of the election campaign, most political analysts expect the ANC to close the gap between the party’s current opinion poll showing and the 50%-plus it requires to govern alone.

A last-minute rally has been a feature of previous elections. Ministers set aside their official duties and devote the last few weeks of the campaign to bold promises about the future and the unveiling of infrastructure projects. Union members desert classrooms and municipal offices to provide organisational support, and traditional leaders and churches are seduced by last-minute blandishments.

A late funding drive once secured big donations from business to a party whose victory was inevitable. State communications budgets were diverted to advertise ANC achievements, and the party’s foot soldiers were deployed to get grudging loyalists to the polls.

Such a late surge will be far harder to realise this time round though. To paraphrase President Cyril Ramaphosa’s reflections in a timely national executive committee leak a few weeks ago, senior comrades have not yet pulled their fingers out.

Moreover, without Jacob Zuma the ANC leadership’s links with traditional leaders are less certain than before. Some chiefs have been showered with bakkies to secure their support.

ANC leaders are sometimes caught simply dishing out cash to potential voters. In advance of the 2021 elections then treasurer-general Paul Mashatile was seen handing banknotes to congregants at a church service in Makhado. He was able to assure observers that he was merely distributing “tithe offerings”.

The ANC’s war chest has been empty, in part because Luthuli House spends almost R1bn a year on salaries for redundant cadres. Incumbent treasurer-general Gwen Ramokgopa is even more ethically scrupulous than her predecessors, Mashatile and Zweli Mkhize, and this may be hampering fund-raising.

Despite repeated episodes of near bankruptcy, mysterious transfers always arrive to rescue Luthuli House. It is fortunate that deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane is chair of both the ANC’s elections and campaigning and its international relations committees. This allows her to seek guidance from other global revolutionary parties about how to secure the seemingly undeclared funds the ANC needs to remain solvent.

This year there are few expensive government projects to be unveiled by ministers bedecked in party colours because of the National Treasury’s emergency expenditure caps.

The situation has been made worse by the fact that some ANC ministers are no longer competent enough to abuse state funds effectively. For example, labour & employment minister Thulas Nxesi has been trying for months to divert more than R20bn of Unemployment Insurance Fund monies into a moribund labour activation programme for distribution to various job opportunity schemes. The money is only just reaching doubtless deserving beneficiaries in key battleground states such as Gauteng.

Other ANC leaders, including Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi and Ekurhuleni mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza, have announced their own “job creation” jaunts using money that does not seem to exist.

On the ground, campaign narratives have meanwhile developed a bizarre character, with load-shedding attributed to the ANC’s success in connecting so many poor people to the grid — or even to the dastardly Europeans’ insistence that we shut down perfectly serviceable coal-fired power stations.

Traditional scare stories are back, with claims that opposition parties will scrap the National Student Financial Aid Scheme and social grants.

Worst of all, the ANC’s ground machinery is in disarray. Membership numbers are down and many branches are inactive. Political scientists have used an innovative “party presence index” to show that the ANC’s famed branch level organisation is far less impressive than once believed.

This time round, a few late posters may not be enough to keep the sinking ANC ship afloat.

• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.