PRESS RELEASE
South Africa Elections Show Zuma’s Great Strength—and Weakness
Aug. 7, 2016 (EIRNS)—The outcome of South Africa’s local elections, just concluded, indicate that the British-centered imperial forces—working against President Jacob Zuma’s pro-BRICS and pro-nuclear faction of the ruling African National Congress (ANC)—have gained some ground. At the same time, the elections also show Zuma’s great strength.
The Democratic Alliance (DA), the leading British-steered party, has won control over two major metropolitan districts, and it came close to winning Johannesburg, where the ANC won, but without an absolute majority:
Tshwane (includes Pretoria, the capital): DA 43%, ANC 41%
Johannesburg (the industrial center): ANC 45%, DA 38%
Nelson Mandela Bay (includes Port Elizabeth), DA 47%, ANC 41%
The ANC won absolute majorities in the other metropolitan districts, except for Cape Town, where the DA was and remains the incumbent.
The British creation of the upstart Economic Freedom Fighters party (EFF), whose leader was recently anointed by the Royal Institute of International Affairs/Chatham House, played a role in the ANC’s losses by presenting a phony "left" alternative. The EFF obtained 12% of the Tshwane vote and 11% in Johannesburg.
When the election results are looked at from the standpoint of what Zuma must do next, they demonstrate the great strength on which he must build: The ANC will hold its party election for its next president in December 2017, and Zuma’s faction must prevail there, because the new president is then expected to be the ANC’s candidate for South African President in the 2019 election. When ANC members assess Zuma’s leadership of the country with an eye to next year’s party election, they will look at his strength in the provinces as a whole, not just in cities. The vote totals by province in the just-concluded local elections show absolute majorities for the ANC (58% to 71%) in seven of the nine provinces. The ANC’s total national vote was 54%.
Thus, in spite of the relentless (and continuing) British imperial financial and propaganda warfare, and its regime-change manipulations of the past two years, Zuma stands strong. To build on this strength over the next 16 months, he must publicly name South Africa’s imperial enemy—the City of London and Wall Street—and rally South Africans around a vision for South Africa’s future that can be accomplished through the BRICS.
In speeches leading up to this election, Zuma repeatedly identified that there is an (unnamed) foreign enemy that controls South Africa through controlling its economy (e.g., a speech in Gauteng, posted on YouTube May 13, 2016, (especially the segment 45:00-48:00). Other leaders in his faction, such as Water Affairs Minister Nomvula Mokonyane, have occasionally identified that this enemy seeks to destroy the BRICS of which South Africa is a part. But the battle cannot be won without a clearer message; and above all, it cannot be won without a vision of South Africa’s future and how that vision will be accomplished.
