Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: On May twenty ninth, South Africa headed to the polls.
Speaker 2: I'm out and about covering the election, so this week
Speaker 2: we partnered with The Big Take podcast. In this episode,
Speaker 2: Sarah Holder is joined by Johannesburg based economic and government
Speaker 2: affairs reporter in Tondo, Taquana, to discuss why data suggests
Speaker 2: voters have shifted away from the ANC with South Africa's
Speaker 2: ruling party set to lose its parliamentary majority according to
Speaker 2: a model developed by a state research agency.
Speaker 3: Maracosa lives nearly thirty miles outside of Johannesburg in South
Speaker 3: Africa's third largest township, Katlohong. She's thirty eight years old
Speaker 3: and pregnant. She lives in a community of more than
Speaker 3: four hundred thousand people, almost all of whom are black.
Speaker 3: Just over a quarter of them, including Mara, live in
Speaker 3: homes constructed out of corrugated iron sheets with no access
Speaker 3: to electricity.
Speaker 4: Come on cause.
Speaker 3: That's Mara speaking with Intando Tupuana, who covers economic and
Speaker 3: government affairs in South Africa for Bloomberg. She told in
Speaker 3: Tondo that for most of her life she's been a
Speaker 3: steady supporter of the African National Congress Party, the party
Speaker 3: of Nelson Mandela, which has led her country since nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety four. Mendela took power after a peaceful toppling of
Speaker 3: apartheid in South Africa when Mara was just eight years old.
Speaker 3: Eight Mendela promised a better life under the ANC, access
Speaker 3: to healthcare, education and employment opportunities.
Speaker 1: With bloods from the Quantilian bounders of Pava deprivation.
Speaker 3: Mara has the ANC party colors hanging in her window.
Speaker 3: Like so many South Africans, She's believed in the party
Speaker 3: for decades. It's won every election in South Africa since
Speaker 3: Mandela's initial victory. Its consistent majority has meant it could
Speaker 3: enact many of its reforms without much pushback. But that
Speaker 3: decades long majority for the ANC could be coming to
Speaker 3: an end. Now even voters like Mara are unsure. Nintando
Speaker 3: says there's growing disappointment with the party, especially among black
Speaker 3: South Africans who feel that its promises haven't fully come true.
Speaker 3: South Africa has the most industrialized economy in Africa, but
Speaker 3: for years economic growth has been stagnant. Its official unemployment
Speaker 3: rate of thirty three percent is among the worst in
Speaker 3: the world, and there are huge racial disparities. The unemployment
Speaker 3: rate for black South Africans is more than three times
Speaker 3: higher than it is for white South Africans. South Africa's
Speaker 3: African National Congress Party has been elected over and over
Speaker 3: again for the past three decades. That thinks in large
Speaker 3: part to its association with Nelson Mandela and Bloomberg's In Tondo,
Speaker 3: Thuquana says life is better for South Africans now than
Speaker 3: it was during apartheid, but that doesn't mean things have
Speaker 3: turned out exactly as the ANC promised.
Speaker 4: The NC is the party that liberated South Africa out
Speaker 4: of white minority rule in nineteen ninety four, and it's
Speaker 4: the reason why so many people believed in the party
Speaker 4: then and when it bran its campaigns in nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 4: it basically promised a better life for all, and it
Speaker 4: promised to widen access to health care, education, employment opportunities,
Speaker 4: and also make South Africa's economy more inclusive. And some
Speaker 4: of those promises have materialized, but not fully.
Speaker 3: Today, nearly two thirds of the population live in poverty,
Speaker 3: and despite the ANC's efforts, South Africa's stark racial divides remain.
Speaker 3: When the party first took over, as many as seven
Speaker 3: million South Africa were either homeless or living in informal settlements,
Speaker 3: so the ANC made housing access a key part of
Speaker 3: its platform. They n try in adequate housing as a
Speaker 3: right in South Africa's new constitution and pledged to build
Speaker 3: about a million subsidized homes and electrify even more. But Maracosa,
Speaker 3: the woman from Katlahung, is one of many South Africans
Speaker 3: who have waited years for housing under a government led
Speaker 3: program and when her turn finally came, all she was
Speaker 3: allocated was a vacant plot of land. Does she feel
Speaker 3: like the government has failed her in some ways?
Speaker 4: She does because she has been given a plot of
Speaker 4: land which she can one day build a house for
Speaker 4: herself and her children, and to her she would not
Speaker 4: have been able to do that for herself, and she
Speaker 4: feels appreciative and grateful that the ANC government was at
Speaker 4: least able to do that for her and also her
Speaker 4: community members also depend on the social welfare grants. But
Speaker 4: on the other hand, she says that they have been
Speaker 4: promised city for instance, and it's not been connected yet,
Speaker 4: which basically means that they are in the dark.
Speaker 3: But housing for all isn't the only campaign promise the
Speaker 3: ANC has struggled to fulfill, and Tonto says educational opportunities
Speaker 3: are lacking too.
Speaker 4: If you look at the education sector, most of the
Speaker 4: public schools in township areas, and those are very densely
Speaker 4: populated areas, we'll find that schools are overcrowded to a
Speaker 4: points that it affects the learning outcomes of children in
Speaker 4: township areas or previously disadvantaged areas.
Speaker 3: According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only
Speaker 3: seven percent of South African adults have received in education
Speaker 3: beyond the high school level, and those gaps in the
Speaker 3: school system have helped contribute to a mounting unemployment crisis
Speaker 3: in South Africa. Why are these unemployment rates so high
Speaker 3: and what does that look like for families in South Africa.
Speaker 4: The basis of the reason why South Africa is struggling
Speaker 4: with unemployments is because there isn't enough economic growth to
Speaker 4: begin with, and what that does is creates a need
Speaker 4: for social welfare and it's not sustainable because it means
Speaker 4: that the country is actually spending more consumption and isn't
Speaker 4: spending enough on productive areas of the economy, and that
Speaker 4: is really a huge problem.
Speaker 3: The government has also struggled to provide basic services like electricity.
Speaker 3: The state owned electricity Company s COM was tasked with
Speaker 3: fixing the crisis, but its budget has been depleted and
Speaker 3: it has faced accusations of corruption, mismanagement, and even sabotage.
Speaker 3: As a result, blackouts have been a fact of life
Speaker 3: in the country for more than a decade.
Speaker 4: Es COM has not been able to supply power. It
Speaker 4: hasn't been able to fill the demand coming from households
Speaker 4: and businesses, and if you think about it, there's historical
Speaker 4: context that comes with it, because when the NC did
Speaker 4: come into power, they inherited a power system that only
Speaker 4: serviced a select few and as time went by, obviously
Speaker 4: they promised to provide housing and electrify those houses, which
Speaker 4: means that the demand had increased, but they had not
Speaker 4: invested enough to make sure that they expand their network
Speaker 4: of equipment.
Speaker 3: The combination of these challenges housing, education, unemployment, and power
Speaker 3: create major drags on the country's entire economy, and finding
Speaker 3: the money to fix those things is not easy. Could
Speaker 3: you just give us a sense of the country's economic
Speaker 3: temperature given all of these problems.
Speaker 4: If you look at South Africa's debt levels, they throttle
Speaker 4: South Africa's capability to spend on productive sectors of the economy.
Speaker 4: And that's the reason why it can't actually do important
Speaker 4: stuff like growth economy and create employments, because it's spending
Speaker 4: on interest payments and that's a hefty amount that you
Speaker 4: could be redirecting to other parts of South Africa's spending needs.
Speaker 4: So yeah, South Africa's public finances are sitting at a
Speaker 4: basically a precarious position.
Speaker 3: And Toando says, this has all led many voters to
Speaker 3: become disillusioned with the ANC.
Speaker 4: A lot of these people are actually conflicted. If you
Speaker 4: talk to them, they're at odds about how they feel
Speaker 4: about the ANC. It's like the ANC has put them
Speaker 4: in a very hard spot where they are now being
Speaker 4: forced to choose between the ANC and someone else, and
Speaker 4: many of them actually don't feel like voting for someone else.
Speaker 4: I mean, I spoke to someone else who basically said
Speaker 4: to him there's no other party.
Speaker 3: But other parties have emerged to challenge the ANC's majority
Speaker 3: this year and what has become the most hotly contested
Speaker 3: election in South Africa since apartheid ended. After the break
Speaker 3: who are these challengers and what are they promising for
Speaker 3: the future of South Africa. In South Africa, voters elect parties,
Speaker 3: not politicians, and the parties choose their own leaders. In
Speaker 3: Tando Tujuana, who covers South Africa's economy and government for Bloomberg, says,
Speaker 3: there have never been so many competitive candidates.
Speaker 4: What you're seeing now for the first time is a
Speaker 4: long list of new entrants coming to the FOE.
Speaker 3: There are three main parties challenging the ANC, the Democratic Alliance,
Speaker 3: the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Umkanto we Seeswear Party.
Speaker 3: What are the different directions for South Africa's future that
Speaker 3: these different candidates and parties are promising.
Speaker 4: The NC currently is promising things that it has promised before,
Speaker 4: to make the economy more inclusive, to increase employment levels
Speaker 4: in the country. And if you look at a party
Speaker 4: like the Economic Freedom Fighters that is a left leaning party,
Speaker 4: it stance is really one of extremism and radicalism.
Speaker 3: The Economic Freedom Fighters are led by Julius Malema.
Speaker 4: These are province where a lot of people don't have
Speaker 4: lens and they leave like sardines in the squad a camps.
Speaker 3: He's only forty three and used to lead the ANC.
Speaker 3: He's long focused on the ANC's failure to address the
Speaker 3: country's stark racial inequality, with headline grabbing moves like calling
Speaker 3: for wide scale land redistribution from the white minority to
Speaker 3: the black majority.
Speaker 4: And then there's a new entrance on the block, the
Speaker 4: overse whose party leader is former Presidents of the South
Speaker 4: African government's Jacob Zuma majority Jonasensa.
Speaker 3: Zuma is eighty two. He served as South Africa's president
Speaker 3: for years under the ANC before being jailed on contempt
Speaker 3: of court charges amid a massive corruption probe, but Zuma
Speaker 3: managed to get out of jail early and is running
Speaker 3: under the umbrella of a new political party. He's technically
Speaker 3: disqualified from holding position in parliament, but he remains popular
Speaker 3: with his followers and so his candidacy could prove a
Speaker 3: spoiler for the ANC. The main opposition is a more
Speaker 3: conservative party, the Democratic Alliance.
Speaker 4: The Democratic Alliance, which is led by John Sten Haysen.
Speaker 4: The policies are more similar to the A and c's policies,
Speaker 4: but there are certain variants.
Speaker 3: The Democratic Alliance is the country's official opposition party. It's
Speaker 3: historically been popular with white South Africans. The party emphasizes
Speaker 3: reducing violent crime and the country's crippling debt. Its leader
Speaker 3: is John Steen Hazen. Here he is responding to President
Speaker 3: rama Posa's State of the Nation address in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5: We cannot sit through another year of your folk while
Speaker 5: our country slides further and further backwards and millions more
Speaker 5: of our citizens fall into poverty and unemployment.
Speaker 3: The possibility of a coalition government would be a situation
Speaker 3: where no one party had majority control, so to pass
Speaker 3: reforms there would likely be lots of negotiation and compromise.
Speaker 3: If re elected, rama Posa has promised new job creation efforts,
Speaker 3: a national health insurance plan, and a monthly welfare program
Speaker 3: to support the country's poorest. But his polling is not
Speaker 3: looking very very good. I asked Sometando, what are the
Speaker 3: odds of the ANC maintaining their majority.
Speaker 4: It's very, very difficult to actually pin a figure in
Speaker 4: terms of whether you know or how much he will get.
Speaker 4: But the consensus is that his party will still remain
Speaker 4: the main party and will still remain the main policy driver,
Speaker 4: and that if there are any significant shifts or maybe
Speaker 4: he has to tap other political parties to help. The
Speaker 4: NC former government that is not going to actually you know,
Speaker 4: translate into major shifts and governments and how government is
Speaker 4: run and you know, all the policies that they have
Speaker 4: in place, they you know, it won't really have a
Speaker 4: big effect on policy. So it is a bit of
Speaker 4: a concern if the NC doesn't manage to get enough
Speaker 4: electual support. If it falls maybe let's say to forty
Speaker 4: two percent or forty percent, which is what some polls
Speaker 4: are suggesting, then it is in real trouble.
Speaker 3: And what that could mean, says in Tondo, is that
Speaker 3: South Africa might not be able to act swiftly and
Speaker 3: decisively to change as policies.
Speaker 4: What that does is that it's a problem for growing
Speaker 4: the economy and creating employments and fixing the power crisis.
Speaker 4: And it will also put a burden on public finances
Speaker 4: because now you've got diversion views about how public finances
Speaker 4: should be managed.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 3: I'm Sarah Holder. South Africa is only one of many
Speaker 3: important elections in twenty twenty four. This year, voters all
Speaker 3: around the world will have the ability to affect markets, countries,
Speaker 3: and economies like never before to make sense of it all.
Speaker 3: Bloomberg's created a new podcast series, Voter Nomics, where politics
Speaker 3: and markets collide. Each week, listening as Stephanie Flanders, Bloomberg's
Speaker 3: head of Government and economics coverage, Allegra Stratton, author of
Speaker 3: Bloomberg's The Readout newsletter and Bloomberg opinion callist Adrian Wooldridge,
Speaker 3: helped make sense of this consequential election season. Find it
Speaker 3: in the in the City and Stephanomic's feeds. This episode
Speaker 3: was produced by Jessica Beck and David Fox. It was
Speaker 3: edited by Stacy Vannicksmith, Mark, Daniel Davies, Jessica Laudis, and
Speaker 3: Neil Munchi. It was mixed by Veronica Rodriguez. It was
Speaker 3: fact checked by Thomas lou and Audriana Tapia. Naomi Shaven
Speaker 3: and Kim Gidtleson are our senior producers. Our senior editor
Speaker 3: is Elizabeth Ponso, Nicole Beemsterbor is our executive producer. Sage
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