South Africa: Focused Smaller Parties Put Big Players On Notice in Uncertain Time
The winners of the local government elections are those that are clear about who they purport to represent, rather than the bigger, established political parties.
The political map of South Africa remained green across large swathes of the country as there was less blue on the eastern and western edge of the Western Cape, and more non-revolutionary red in the northern part of KwaZulu-Natal, with a speck of orange and blue there as well.
Superficially, it appeared that the ANC remained utterly dominant in the northern parts of the country and the Northern and Eastern Cape, while the DA remained the party of choice in the Western Cape, with the maps of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng more unclear.
It was anything but business as usual as the ANC and DA lost significant ground, with the main beneficiaries being parties who are unambiguous about who they represent – certain ethnic, cultural, religious, regional or local groupings.
This strange election saw the DA, the official opposition, failing to take advantage of a wounded ANC, while it also lost ground in many of its local government strongholds and failed to pick off the ANC in many municipalities where the ruling party had a slender.
By Daily Maverick.
