Now that the elections are over in South Africa, this is what Zapiro thinks about the 2009 Elections.
“Visit www.zapiro.com for more cartoons.”
As Nandos had promised us last week, they aired a new advert on Friday in response to the initial one featuring Julius Malema. I do not think we should be calling this new ad the ‘Malema Nandos ad’ because Malema does not feature in it anymore! Instead they have blocked out the face and edited the voice. But the ‘damage’ has already been done as everyone will still be calling it the Malema ad. I wonder what the ANC Youth League have to say now in response to this new ad? Theoretically they can not say anything! Watch this space. You can view the new ad below.
On the 9 May 2009, African National Congress President Jacob Zuma will become the President of South Africa. This comes after the ANC won an outright majority in the country’s fourth democratic elections which were held on the 22 April.
Before these elections, there was much talk from political and media analysts that the ANC would lose much of its support to the newly formed Congress of the People. This follows after former president Thabo Mbeki, was recalled from the presidential office, causing much of the electorate to lose confidence in the ruling party. This belief was fuelled by the increase in the number of registered first time voters since 1994, as this seemingly indicated an increase in the number of people disillusioned by the ANC. As the first day of counting drew to a close across South Africa however, it became clear that the ANC still had a vice grip over the majority of the vote of the people. In the end, the party obtained 65.9% of the national vote, just shy of the highly anticipated two thirds majority, proving once again that the ANC was still the people’s party and that Jacob Zuma would became the number one citizen of the Republic.
Many analysts had assumed the vote would swing away from the party with COPE taking a large portion of the ANC vote. This election victory can thus easily be described as momentous, as the party seems to have come out of an apparent crisis, with much of its support still intact. Despite the formation of break-away party COPE and the numerous legal woes which have plagued Jacob Zuma (which saw many people questioning his eligibility to stand for public office), 65.9% of registered South Africans still voted in favour of the charismatic leader.
As we expected the ANC has claimed a resounding victory in the general elections. With a 66% majority in Parliament, the ANC is set to elect Zuma as president when the new legislature convenes on May 6. The final results were released today (Saturday) and they showed that the ANC was allocated 264 seats in parliament after winning 65.9 percent of the vote. The ANC won control of eight of the nine provinces. The DA won the Western Cape province. ANC president, Jacob Zuma has come out and said, “Working together we will make it a government for all South Africans.”
The final results were:
Total number of votes per party:
ANC: 11,650,748 (65.90 percent)
DA: 2,945,829 (16.66 percent)
COPE: 1,311,027 (7.42 percent)
IFP: 804,260 (4.55 percent)
ID: 162,915 (0.92 percent)
OTHER: 805,950 (4.56 percent)
I watched with interest Koos van der Merwe’s comments this morning on E-TV’s New Channel on the reasons behind the IFP haemorrhaging both nationally and in its stronghold of KZN. As an ex-IFP spokesman, the IFP’s further slide does not surprise me. I think the two key factors can be summarised as follows:
1. The ‘Zuma factor” removed one of the key reason d’ etre’s of the IFP’s existence. No more could it mobilise on the strength of its “Zuluness”; no more could it tap deep into overt or latent feelings of Zulu pride and nationalism. To use a traditional metaphor, Zuma thrust a Zulu short-stabbing spear into the IFP’s heartland. The IFP were caught off-guard by the ‘Zuma’ drawcard, and seemingly were unable to mount a viable and enduring challenge to his sheer magnetism. In effect, style (Zuma’s political charisma as the champion of the “everyman”) won over substance - not for nothing was Zuma voted SA’s most “sexy” politician. The body language and even some public statements by IFP leaders before the election spoke volumes of a party of despair – in contrast to the robust optimism of previous elections, that sometimes resembled the pre-fight hype of a prized fighter, an air of realism (some less charitable may say resignation and defeat) crept into some of its public utterances, as it contemplated an erosion of its traditional support base that in previous years would have been considered unthinkable. This support base has been ebbing away since the ’94 election, and despite Prince Buthelezi threatening to crack the whip on its activists, and threatening to purge its ‘dead wood’, it seems that, based on the election outcome, the KZN electorate has spurned the IFP as an “anachronism” that has failed to reinvent and re-define itself convincingly in the modern era.
2. Unforgiving minority communities continue to “punish” the IFP for its previous dogged insistence on making Ulundi the capital. Although the capital issue was not an election issue this time round, it was still fresh in the memory of voters from minority communities. Unfortunately, the IFP has not been able to shed this ‘liability’ in the minds of minority voters, as it has neither repudiated this stance - which clearly alienated significant sections of KZN – nor has it publicly conceded that this strategy was counter-productive. It therefore lost an opportunity to re-capture, and build on, the goodwill it previously enjoyed from some minority communities in KZN.
Personally, I’m disappointed that the IFP has squandered the opportunity it had since the last election to re-position itself as a “sexy” antidote to the ANC juggernaut and as a credible government-in-waiting. As our democracy matures, it’s inevitable that the number of competing voices whittles down, but the stronger the plurality our political voices are, the more vibrant our democracy.
Notwithstanding the above, I don’t believe the IFP will enter into a coalition at this stage. Like the Freedom Front Plus, diluting its identity is anathema to it. The most I see at this stage is strategic voting with the DA on issues of mutual interest.
In terms of the realignment and strengthening of opposition politics, it would make sense for the UDM and ID to absorb themselves into Cope, with Bantu Holomisa and Patricia de Lille perhaps put forward as Cope’s premier candidates for the next election. I hope that, with time, voters increasingly move away from ‘identity’ to ‘interest’ politics and that minority communities in particular embrace parties whose support bases are significantly rooted in the black majority.
Post submitted by
Ed Tillett
The Malema vs Nandos saga continues! After the ANC Youth League had called for Malema’s Nandos ad to be taken off the air and Nandos had agreed to do so, we are now hearing that Nandos marketing manager, Sylvester Chauke, has decided Nandos will be airing a new Malema-related advert today (Friday). Chauke has said, “We agreed to address the youth league’s concerns and we will respond in a way that it is true to Nando’s.” One can only start to imagine what Nandos have up their sleeve now. I have a funny feeling the ANC Youth League is not going to be happy again with what we will see today, and this time it is really going to push them over the edge.
Is it wise for Nandos do be causing all this controversy? They are getting good publicity one must say and from a business marketing perspective that could be great for them. But at the same time the Youth League’s threats of militant action against Nandos should not go unnoticed.
I wonder if Malema himself will ever go and buy anything from a Nandos again?
Click here to view the new ad.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) can celebrate one thing: the got the most overseas votes and they won them by a land slide. It is a pity that they can not win by that margin when all the votes are put together. But then again, we asked this question before the elections with regards to how much these overseas votes would contribute to the bigger picture. The Democratic Alliance received 7 581 votes of the 9 857 cast from people who voted overseas. The African National Congress received 673 votes and the Congress of the People received 918.
What this result just goes to show is that the South Africans living overseas are not behind the ruling ANC party and that is probably the reason they left the country in the first place. And it is also interesting to note that COPE got more overseas votes than the ANC. Those in the diaspora really don’t like the ANC!
Something of concern about the polling station at St Pauls church in Rondebosch is that the voting booths are facing the wrong way. It is open and people and the press stood behind Hellen Zille when she was voting. In other words people can see you while you busy making your mark. The correct way is one must go behind the polling booth to cast your vote. According to the voters act nobody is supposed to view you making your secret mark which is not the case at St. Pauls.
Was this a major error by the IEC? See for yourself below.
If you have not already watched the Nandos advert everyone is talking about then you need to watch it below! The ANC Youth League has been quick to come out and ask for this advert to be taken off the air or else it will “mobilise the people of South Africa to take militant action against Nandos and anything associated with Nando’s”. Does this mean they will go in and ‘invade’ every Nandos shop in South Africa like the war veterans did in Zimbabwe?
This is not the first time, and I do not think it will be the last time, that the media has a go at Malema. They seem to find him as an easy target to make fun of. There was the prank call not so long ago when Malema apparently spoke to Barack Obama.
What do you think of this Nandos advert?
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