South Africa’s ANC makes billion-dollar pledges ahead of election

South Africa’s governing African National Congress has pledged billions of dollars worth of new benefits and giveaways in a last-ditch effort to prevent it losing its parliamentary majority for the first time since the end of apartheid.

President Cyril Ramaphosa this month signed into law a health insurance bill that aims to create a state fund to cover medical costs for all citizens — many of whom lack any health coverage — ahead of the general election on Wednesday.

His party has also said it would implement a “basic income grant” for the unemployed that make up at least a third of the working-age population within two years.

The halting of the power cuts that have afflicted the country for years has also raised suspicion among many voters that the ANC is spending unsustainable sums of money to fix a problem that has long been seen as an election liability.

Mteto Nyati, chair of Eskom, the state electricity provider, this month assured the Financial Times that there was no trickery and that power cuts were not likely to return.

Peter Attard Montalto, managing director of the Krutham consultancy, said the health insurance and basic income grant, were they to be implemented as planned, could cost at least an extra R320bn ($17bn) a year, which could only be funded by hefty tax increases.

Ramaphosa defended both measures at the ANC’s final campaign rally in Johannesburg on Saturday, saying only “some privileged members of society” opposed his health insurance scheme.

He also pledged to “accelerate land reform and redistribution”, a key promise of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters and the uMkhonto we Sizwe party led by former president Jacob Zuma, both of which could take votes from the ANC.

Ramaphosa’s cross-country campaigning had helped the ANC regain some support over the past two months, according to several polls, though there were some signs it was slipping back again.

The latest polls put the ANC at 42.7 per cent, assuming a 60 per cent turnout. Under that modelling, the opposition Democratic Alliance was at 24.7 per cent and Zuma’s MK party at 12.2 per cent, according to Gareth van Onselen, whose company Victory Research conducts a daily poll for the Social Research Foundation.

Van Onselen said there were signs that the ANC’s health insurance pledge was backfiring among voters who either did not believe the government could afford to implement it or who feared that it would have a negative impact on the quality of care.

“Since [the scheme] was announced, the ANC has fallen from its highest number of 46.3 per cent, with some of that support going to the DA,” he said.

John Steenhuisen, leader of the DA, said in an interview that the ANC would not be able to make up lost ground. “The only question now is how far below 50 per cent they get and what will happen then,” he said. “All the polls . . . would have to be spectacularly wrong for the ANC to win a parliamentary majority from here.”

Ralph Mathekga, an independent political analyst, said voters were unconvinced by the ANC’s big promises.

“It’s a disingenuous game of populism,” he said. “They can’t really campaign based on the services they’ve delivered, so I think voters will treat this with scepticism.”

However Greg Mills, executive director of the Brenthurst Foundation think-tank, cautioned against underestimating a party that has governed continuously since it won South Africa’s first post-apartheid election in 1994.

“They still have an incredible brand in South Africa and they would invariably have clawed back some lost ground as they started spending money on their campaign,” he said.

Mills said the most interesting question would be the ANC’s choice of coalition partner if it failed to win a majority.

A combination with Julius Malema’s EFF or Zuma’s MK would draw it into more radical policies, he said, while partnering with a smaller party would allow the ANC to keep its platform unchanged, since the ruling party would be in the driving seat.

Parties likely to win a small share of the vote include the Action Christian Democratic Party and the Congress of the People. 

Potential smaller parties in any coalition could include the Inkatha Freedom party and the Patriotic Alliance. Other smaller parties include ActionSA, headed by Herman Mashaba, a former mayor of Johannesburg, Rise Mzanzi, and Build One South Africa, fronted by Mmusi Maimane, the former DA leader.

“We’ve seen parties jumping up by as much as 1 per cent on any given day,” said Van Onselen. “It’ll take right up to election day for many voters to decide.”