Middle-class Voters May Punish ANC

In 2016, the ruling party lost its grip on key metros in the municipal elections. If the current landslide that is economic inequality continues, they stand to lose a lot more in the 2019 general election.

- Andile Ntingi

ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, Aristotle, famous for being Alexander the Great’s tutor, once wrote “no state will be well administered unless the middle class holds sway”.The middle class has for years been an important but politically-dormant strata of South African society, but soaring costs eating into the group’s income are awakening it. From fuel, food, clothes, medicines, rental, education, to electricity and water, the costs of these services and products are skyrocketing.

The high cost of living, a stagnant economy, and rising unemployment are forcing the middle class to stand up to government policies that are threatening its financial position.

In 2016, the tension between the middle class and government came to a head in Gauteng, the country’s richest province, where residents used the ballot in municipal elections to punish the ruling ANC for presiding over the imposition of an unpopular urban e-tolling system, which has increased transport costs for motorists and businesses.

Middle-class residents, backed by poor residents who often protest about poor service delivery, abandoned the ANC at the 2016 local government elections, resulting in the ruling party losing control of the two important Gauteng metropolitan municipalities of Tshwane and Johannesburg, and coming within a whisker of losing Ekurhuleni. The ANC also lost control of Port Elizabeth, the largest metropolitan city in the Eastern Cape, to a coalition of opposition political parties.