As Partners More Than Rivals: the DA and the ANC Are the Future

If any more evidence was needed, the data published in this newspaper yesterday, that the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the African National Congress (ANC) are both polling in the 30 percentiles, with just five percentage points separating them, is the clearest evidence yet that South Africa is moving firmly towards becoming a two party system of government.

The data, sourced from a November poll by the Social Research Foundation, put electoral support for the ANC at 37% and the DA at 32%, based on a 53% voter turnout model.

In the 2024 election the DA drew just over half of its votes from the established middle classes. The ANC drew a little less than half from the aspirant middle class on the urban fringe. This is very important because the interests of the two voting blocs are closely aligned. Policies that secure a future for the established middle class are the same as those that create a future for the aspirant middle class.

There is little, therefore, that the ANC and the DA should not have in common when it comes to the core policies that South Africa needs to be successful.

A very good result for the country would be where the two parties now settle into a comfortable partnership in which the DA brings the established middle class to the table and the ANC the aspirant middle class.

That will also allow the ANC to secure its rural base, given that rural voters, who are often much older than the average, are deeply invested in the success of their children and grandchildren who have gone to cities in the hope of finding opportunities that may see them, or their children, aspire to middle-class standards of living.

In all the above the DA and the ANC might come to see each other as partners in fixing South Africa, more than as rivals. Should that happen, the successes South Africa has recorded since the formation of the Government of National Unity, ranging from the mini-budget last week, to bond yields falling, to the decision to drop the National Health Insurance proposal, the lights being on, port and rail reforms gaining traction (as the deputy finance minister told this newspaper’s Talking Sense podcast earlier this week), and the successful hosting of the G20, may be just the start of a process that will see South Africa becoming a very successful, prosperous, and free society over the next decade.