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Rasool's exit 'won't help ANC'

NIC DAWES: ANALYSIS | CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - Aug 03 2008 06:00

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The forced resignation of Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool won't fundamentally alter the electoral dynamics of the province, nor will it help the ANC, the opposition DA and ID believe.

The ANC's prospects at next year's elections were cited last week by party chairperson Baleka Mbete as the reason for the party's decision to sack Rasool.

"This is a political intervention to give the ANC a chance [to organise] ahead of the elections," she said.
Rasool's backers, however, insist that his ousting will irretrievably damage the ANC's prospects and are making that claim central to their lobbying before the party's provincial conference.

Rasool himself has not ruled out running for the provincial executive committee, telling the Mail & Guardian last week that top national officials had assured him "no provincial leadership would be complete without you". However, he added, "the main barrier to me standing may be myself".

"The ANC is going to lose the election, it doesn't matter who the premier is," insists DA strategist Ryan Coetzee, citing the ANC's declining support among coloured voters, who account for more than half of the electorate.

DA research shows that the ANC's coloured voter support is "collapsing dramatically", Coetzee said.

Focus groups and polling data pointed to a "deep feeling among coloured voters that the ANC is not there for them".

According to Coetzee the party's research suggests the principal cause is alienation from the ruling party's perceived neglect of coloured interests.

"Over 10 years of the Mbeki presidency the ANC has increasingly come across as a black African nationalist organisation," he said. "It takes a long time for voters to detach themselves from a party, but when they do, it can be dramatic."

CONTINUES BELOW

The research shows that the DA and Patricia de Lille's ID are likely beneficiaries of a swing away from the ANC, he added.

However, Coetzee said the ANC's core African vote may also be eroded as party organisers, who feel they are on the losing side of the factional battle, slacken their efforts to get people to the polls and voters become increasingly apathetic.

ID MP Lance Greyling said the party's polling indicated the ID would hold the balance of power in the province after elections and that recent by-elections bore out the trend.

"In the Macassar, Drakenstein and Riviersonderend by-elections we won over ANC voters and we also brought out new voters," he said.

De Lille on Tuesday announced the defection of 120 ANC members to the party, a move she attributed directly to the sacking of Rasool.

Rasool said much would depend on whether the ANC could hold on to rural coloured voters and the urban coloured middle class. The broader coloured working class in Cape Town has "always been ambivalent about the ANC", he said.

Provincial ANC leaders opposed to Rasool are adamant that their own polling shows support holding steady, with a "plurality" of the coloured vote going to the ANC.

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