ANC PREVAILS, WINS GOVERNING MAJORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 PRETORIA 000841

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/28/2019
TAGS: KDEM PGOV PREL SF
SUBJECT: ANC PREVAILS, WINS GOVERNING MAJORITY

REF: A. PRETORIA 000661

B. PRETORIA 000662

C. PRETORIA 000664

D. PRETORIA 000543

E. PRETORIA 000544

PRETORIA 00000841 001.2 OF 004


Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR RAYMOND L. BROWN FOR REASONS 1.4 (B)
AND (D).

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Summary
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1. (C) The ruling African National Congress (ANC) prevailed
in the April 22 national and provincial election with a total
of 65.96 percent of the national vote; slightly down from
their total of 69 percent in 2004, and 67 percent in 1999.
The second highest vote total went to the multi-racial
Democratic Alliance at 16.6 percent, retaining its status as
the official opposition in Parliament. The removal of
corruption charges against Zuma and the closing of this case
represented only a marginal boost for ANC President Jacob
Zuma's electoral prospects despite a widespread presumption
that there is compelling evidence against Zuma.


2. (C) Political analysts fully expected this outcome as the
ANC is the only South African political party that attracts
the support of the majority of the black population. (Note:
See Reftels for more information. End Note.) The ANC has
successfully leveraged its role in the anti-apartheid
struggle into political capital unmatched by any other party.
Its claim to "struggle credentials" associated with the
successful defeat of apartheid's racialist regime is
supported by the vast majority of the population. The ANC's
efforts after 1994 to propel the majority population into the
economic and political mainstream -- building houses,
schools, clinics, roads, rural electrification, etc. -- are
incomplete, yet have profoundly changed the lives of millions
of South Africans and simultaneously cemented their support
for the ANC. Local pundits agonized over questions about
what would be the eventual size of the ANC's majority as they
wondered whether the ANC would achieve the magical two-thirds
majority target it held since 1999. It did not win a two
thirds majority, falling short by only 0.04 percent. (Note:
Some local pundits also point out that the ANC probably will
have to fall a long way before it loses its governing status.
Like in most proportional representative governments, the
ANC could win between 30 and 40 percent of the vote and still
be charged with forming a coalition government after an
election. End Note.)

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Zuma Indebted to Alliance Partners
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3. (C) An internal power struggle within the ANC raged since
2005 when former President Thabo Mbeki removed Zuma as his
deputy after Zuma was implicated in allegations of bribery
and corruption associated with a controversial arms deal.
This alienation between Mbeki and Zuma and their respective
supporters was further accentuated by broad ANC disaffection
resulting from Mbeki's authoritarian leadership style and his
efforts to draw a line between the primacy of the party over
the state. Old guard ANC loyalists, and their alliance
partners in the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the
Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU),vehemently
objected to Mbeki's belief that the party and the state
should remain separate. They preferred the alternative view
that the ANC as the majority party had the right to determine
state policy, administration, management, and personnel -- in
Qstate policy, administration, management, and personnel -- in
the interest of their constituencies. They also argued
vociferously that Mbeki's macro-economic policies, which
achieved an average of 4-5 percent annual growth from
2000-2007, were wrong for South Africa and had created a
two-tiered economy that made the rich richer and the poor
poorer.


4. (C) The defeat of Mbeki by Zuma in December 2007 in
Polokwane as the ANC party president was directly related to
his support by anti-Mbeki elements within the ANC, but
particularly the SACP, COSATU and the ANC's Youth League
(ANCYL). His victory over Mbeki began a realignment of the
party's leadership, philosophical orientation and shifted
policy goals away from Mbeki's market/trade-oriented economic

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policy as well as his internationalism, replacing it with an
ambitious and self-conscious domestic focus on the interest
of the poor inside South Africa. In contrast, Mbeki's
foreign policy vision saw South Africa deeply involved in
continental conflict resolution, peace keeping and reform of
regional and continental institutions such as the African
Union (AU). His aspiration to see South Africa become a
leader of the developing south in its relationship to the
industrial north reflects an ANC ideological commitment that
may well be one of Mbeki's priorities that will be
maintained by the next SAG President, Jacob Zuma. Since
Polokwane, the SACP, COSATU, and the ANCYL have been the most
adamant and influential proponents of a more socialist,
left-leaning policy orientation that distrusts the market, is
uncomfortable with capitalism, is resistant to comprehensive
privatization of state enterprises, and believes in state
intervention in the economy to support the interests of the
poor; and the use of state resources to expand welfare
subsidies for poor communities and households. Zuma is
deeply indebted to the ANC alliance partners for his rise as
ANC President, and these allies believe they now have a
leader through whom they can achieve their political goals.
(Note: These allies also have been putting pressure on Zuma
as ANCYL President Julius Malema told a crowd over the
weekend that Zuma has to deliver or else face the wrath of
the youth of the country. End Note.)


5. (C) The election of Zuma as ANC leader, supported
aggressively by the ANC's alliance partners, was followed by
a systematic purge of Mbeki's supporters within the Cabinet,
the Parliament, the civil services, the provinces and party
structures. The forced resignation of Mbeki in September
2008 led to ultimate victory for Zuma's faction within the
ANC, all but guaranteeing Zuma's rise to be the next
President of the Republic. However, the ANC's "recall and
redeployment" of Mbeki as SAG president and the continuing
purges of his supporters precipitated the emergence of the
break-away opposition party made up primarily of former ANC
stalwarts, the Congress of the People (COPE). The ANC saw in
COPE what it did not see in other opposition parties -- a
potential threat to their near exclusive support of the
majority black population. The prospect of losing voter
support to a break-away group of former comrades (that they
believe is directly related to and supported by Mbeki)
galvanized the ANC's election campaign machinery like nothing
else could.


6. (C) The ANC's well-funded, nation-wide, door to door
campaign aimed to convince its core grassroots support that
COPE had neither the vision, support base nor the resources
to rule or to help them like the ANC could. With a campaign
budget in excess of Rand 300,000,000 (US $ 30,000,000),the
ANC was able to blanket the country with posters, provide
poor communities with food hampers and other support,
produced television commercials and other campaign media.
After only four months in the game, COPE's lack of resources,
internal leadership squabbles and a party platform that was
characterized as "ANC-lite," could not compete with the ANC
for the hearts and minds of South Africans. Nevertheless,
for a new party, COPE did energize the campaign and was seen
Qfor a new party, COPE did energize the campaign and was seen
by many, especially young and middle-class black voters, as
potentially a viable alternative to the ANC. As election
results were reported, COPE is now the third largest party in
South Africa with 7.42 percent of the vote. (Note: the
Inkatha Freedom Party lost significant ground even in its
Zulu ethnic heartland of Kwa-Zulu Natal, with only 4.57
percent of the national vote. End Note.)

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Changing Domestic and Foreign Policy Priorities
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7. (C) The re-election of the ANC as the ruling party will
see Jacob Zuma inaugurated as South Africa's fourth
post-apartheid president on May 9, after the ANC-dominated
Parliament so votes on May 6. This long anticipated and
inevitable outcome still leaves unanswered a raft of
questions about the incoming government and party leadership.
For example, the top one hundred or so people on the ANC's
party list will fill key cabinet and parliamentary seats in
the next government. Within Zuma's support group will be a
large number of SACP and COSATU leaders who will occupy
strategic seats under the banner of the ANC. (Note: Neither
SACP nor COSATU participate in elections under their own

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names, but compete as part of the ANC and will participate in
the next government as ANC cabinet members and
parliamentarians. End Note.) However, whomever will emerge
as Zuma's closest economic, social, and political and foreign
policy advisers remain profoundly unclear.


8. (C) Promises by Zuma and others that the ANC will not
radically change the country's domestic, economic and foreign
policy will now be tested. Signals sent by the ANC since
Polokwane suggest that: a) the SAG will have a more intensive
domestic focus rather than Mbeki's internationalist policies;
b) the primacy of the party over the apparatus of the state
must be solidified; and c) major changes will occur in the
cabinet as well as ministerial portfolios, along with civil
service positions from the deputy minister level down through
directors general and office directors. Zuma's ANC believes,
more so than did Mbeki, that ANC personnel must be placed in
strategic positions throughout the government to ensure that
the party's policy priorities were achieved. That is, the
ANC believes that it's members -- comrades and deployed
cadres -- are instruments of the senior party executive, the
National Executive Committee (NEC). As such, from the
president, to parliamentarians, and all categories of civil
servants are by extension instruments and deployed cadres of
the ANC. (Note: The Zuma ANC does not believe that
parliamentarians are constitutional persons with the mandate
to vote their conscience. Rather, they are deployed cadres
of the ANC, taking instruction only from the NEC via the
President. This idea explains how the ANC could remove Mbeki
as a sitting president simply because in their view, he was
just another deployed cadre who had been "redeployed." End
Note.)


9. (C) There is a great deal of curiosity and speculation
about what a Zuma administration will look like and what can
be expected of him as a national leader. He has repeatedly
said that he will not be a policy leader, but will implement
whatever policy emerges from the ANC's NEC. He has spent a
great deal of time engaging diverse constituencies -- i.e.,
investors, Afrikaners, civil society groups, Hindus, Muslims,
foreign leaders, etc. -- reassuring them that his
administration would be no threat to their interests. As an
unintended consequence, Zuma has come to be perceived as a
politician who tells each constituency exactly what they want
to hear, raising doubts about his veracity and what he
actually believes. More importantly, he will be working
under a double disadvantage of an economy sliding into
recession in the context of a global economic crisis and a
reduced set of choices for experienced technocratic managers
because his faction has purged the Mbeki supporters who
gained governing experience since 1994. Whites, Indians and
coloureds remain concerned about Zuma's reassurances to them
at the same time that the NEC emphasizes a policy focus on
the black poor. A recent ANC initiative to make "affirmative
action" permanent -- to redress historical wrongs and
disadvantages -- concerns non-black South African's about
their position in this society as well as the impact of
quotas limiting their access to advanced education, state
resources, public service employment, business and
Qresources, public service employment, business and
investment options, among other concerns.

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Comment: Good Bilateral Prospects
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10. (C) Whatever develops from the transition in South
African politics, it will be some time yet before the
outlines of a Zuma presidency and its policies will be
clarified. Nevertheless, Post has reason to believe that a
Zuma presidency, despite the potential rise of the
ideological left within the ANC, represents an opportunity
for the USG to improve bilateral relations with the SAG/ANC.
Zuma was accessible to Post's leadership over the past year,
which suggests continuing access to him as state president.
During a visit to Washington, D.C. in October 2008, Zuma met
POTUS and SECSTATE as well as other senior USG principals and
opened a dialogue aimed at supporting the ANC's policy
priorities; i.e., public health responses to the HIV/AIDs
pandemic, economic growth for job creation to reduce
unacceptably high unemployment rates, and technical
assistance and training for law enforcement and judicial
sectors to reduce high crime rates.

(C) Close Zuma allies have been in contact with our Front

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Office to pursue prospective areas of cooperation and
partnership with the new SAG administration. Zuma expressed
an interest for strengthening bilateral trade, investment and
other economic relationships which show great promise for
near term growth and improvement. Educational and cultural
exchanges continue to represent a fertile area for bilateral
cooperation. ANC and SAG interests in improving South African
law enforcement and military capabilities are ongoing areas
for enhanced bilateral partnership, despite local ambivalence
regarding the establishment of the Africa Command. These
trends and signals augur well for building stronger bilateral
relationships between the Zuma and Obama administrations.
End Comment.
LA LIME