It was very good to see the excellent political data on the forthcoming election that News24 produced via the people at SABI International. Very well done and very well presented. It is that standard of information that South Africa needs to produce on its politics. And it is a big investment and service to the public to produce such information.

Too many “political scientists” (an absurd description to begin with) get away with just making it up as they go along. Imagine an economist holding forth about growth, inflation, and the deficit with no data. Or a wealth adviser not knowing the data trendlines for stocks and bonds but holding forth nonetheless about what people should do with their money. That is, in practice, what most of South Africa’s political analysis world does. It’s a complete grift.

Getting to grips with the politics requires good data. America is really good at that, and parts of Europe are too. But in South Africa, there has never been much by way of publicly accessible data. It was so good, therefore, to see News24 bring those numbers, and other media houses should follow suit. Nothing could make us happier than an overall lift in the quality of political writing and reporting. You should not believe a word anyone tells you about politics if they cannot put sound numbers behind the argument.

What the News24 numbers show is pretty much what long-standing SRF data, which this newspaper makes so much use of, has shown, namely that the ANC is coming apart and that major centres may be deadlocked. News24, for example, has the DA on 40.0% in Johannesburg, and the SRF data to date this year averages out to around 41.0%. They have the ANC on 20.0%, and the SRF most recently had it on 18.0% in the city (the ANC is really volatile in Gauteng, so that may move up again). The MKP they have at 11.0%, and the SRF had it at 13.0%.

It is also very good that News24 made clear that the data is not a forecast of anything. So many analysts and journalists make this mistake. The data reflects when it was collected and will change over time, just as, in economics, the exchange rate or the yield spread can shift over time. Presently, some of the shifts are pretty dramatic as the ANC breaks up - so be very cautious about reading final result into the numbers.

Will the DA get 50.0% in Johannesburg? Given the volatility in the ANC number and the importance of turnout modelling in the data, that remains possible, but the best data to date has not crossed that level yet. To many people, not least Helen Zille and the DA, who have worked so tirelessly and heroically to try and help the city, that may be a great disappointment. But it should not be. She and her colleagues will be the biggest party in the city without doubt and in that they will have set up a race for Gauteng in 2029 that the DA may win outright.

A centrepiece of revolutionary theory is not to interrupt your opponent whilst they are making a mistake, and if the ANC/MKP/EFF want to make a go of the city, and they have the numbers, and they insist on shutting the DA out, then the DA should play that to their advantage. In 2029, Gauteng will go to the polls in the next national election. With Cyril Ramaphosa gone by then and the EFF/MKP/ANC looting Johannesburg to the bone, the DA has a very good chance to win the province outright and, as a consequence of that, to emerge as the biggest party in the country. With control of Gauteng, there is a lot they can do, including forcing terms on a post-2029 national coalition.

What the DA should not do under any circumstances is enter a coalition in Johannesburg where it will be sabotaged by its partners. That would be a disaster. The ANC is set on doing this to them, and ActionSA too. The latter is so dripping with malice and hate that it is quite something to behold; people who have witnessed it call it breathtaking. The careful veneer of ActionSA wanting to save Johannesburg is a complete fraud. Voting for ActionSA is like setting fire to your city and may very well be the difference between Johannesburg getting a DA government or not.

As for the ANC it knows it can no longer make a claim to being better than the DA on much, so, to remain at all competitive, it must pull the DA down to its level by smearing it with allegations of corruption and incompetence. Sabotaging Johannesburg under a partly DA government will fit the bill perfectly. The public, the ANC wishes, must come to think that both parties are inherently useless and ineffective. That is what strategy has come down to for much of the ANC now - to show that its rivals are as useless as it is.

If the DA falls into that trap of governing with saboteurs, and the public gets led astray by the consequences, then hope for a better South Africa is lost. A much better strategy is to live to fight in 2029 with its reputation intact.

If the ANC/MKP/EFF mess up the city further through 2027 and 2028, then voters in 2029 will better understand the stark choice to make. Either it’s the DA or the ANC; you cannot vote for the latter and expect to get the former in the government.