South Africa’s 2016 Municipal Elections: How the ANC and DA Leveraged Twitter to Capture the Urban Vote
This paper focuses on how South Africa’s governing party, the African
National Congress (ANC), and main opposition, the Democratic Alliance
(DA), leveraged microblogging site Twitter. This was part of their urban
election campaign arsenal in the 2016 local government elections (LGE) to
promote party-political digital issue ownership within an urban context.
Using each party’s corpus of 2016 election-related tweets and election
manifestos, this three-phased grounded theory study found that each party
used Twitter as a digital political communication platform to communicate
their election campaigns. The DA notably leveraged the social networking
site more for intense focused messaging of its negative campaign against the
ANC while simultaneously promoting positive electoral messages around
its own core issues and metro (urban) mayoral candidates. Furthermore,
battleground metros were identified, narrow-cast and subsequently audience segmented by the party in Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg, Tshwane (in Gauteng)
and Nelson Mandela Bay (in the Eastern Cape). This led to an emphasised
campaign to either activate the party’s own urban support base and/or to
suppress the ANC’s turnout in these highly-contested areas. The results of
this study further indicate that the ANC and DA both used Twitter to claim
explicit and implicit digital party-political issue ownership in the 2016 LGE.
The Impact of Cross-Boundary Electoral Demarcation Disputes in South Africa after 1994: The Case Study of Moutse
The article investigates the impact of cross-boundary electoral demarcation
disputes between the Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces after 1994. The
article further examines how the electoral demarcation disputes can be
resolved by negotiating with the dissatisfied communities. Moutse is located
within a community that straddles north-western Mpumalanga and southern
Limpopo provinces in South Africa. In 2005 the community members of
Moutse wards 5 and 6 were dissatisfied by the decision of the South African
national government, Limpopo and Mpumalanga provincial governments for
relocating them under a newly demarcated administrative boundary without
hearing the views of the community. The article used community dialogues
for its research. This approach is explained predominantly by qualitative
and quantitative approaches to indicate processes of data collection, to
explain the nature of the problem and explore the findings of communitybased research. The study reveals that violent disruptions and protests by
community members can be avoided if community voices are taken into
consideration. The article recommends that state institutions that support
constitutional democracy need to show the administrative and political
will to transform electoral demarcation challenges and implement effective
democratic principles. In conclusion, advanced institutional planning and
its transparent application must be emphasised.
Zuma versus Ramaphosa: Factors Influencing Party Choice of South Africans in the Run-up to the 2019 Elections
The outcome of the 2016 local government elections in which the ANC lost substantial support, fuelled early speculation on not only the outcome of the 2019 general elections, but also on the factors which were likely to determine party support. Added to this was the deteriorating political and socio-economic situation in South Africa. Against this […]
South Africa’s Democracy: The Quality of Political Participation over 25 Years eisa
L’Afrique du Sud a réalisé des progrès considérables depuis 1994 dans l’institutionnalisation et la consolidation de la qualité de sa démocratie. Cependant, des problèmes graves et persistants de gouvernance et des problèmes socio-économiques ont provoqué la colère et la frustration de la population et motivé une augmentation des actions de protestation par le biais de canaux conventionnels et moins conventionnels. La possibilité pour les citoyens de participer au processus politique est essentielle pour une démocratie saine. Il est donc important que des procédures et des mécanismes appropriés soient en place. lieu pour faciliter cette participation. En utilisant la méthodologie de la qualité de la démocratie, le document aborde plusieurs questions importantes, à savoir : dans quelle mesure les opportunités de participation conventionnelle sont-elles développées en Afrique du Sud, et dans quelle mesure sont-elles exploitées ? et quelles formes non conventionnelles de participation existent et quelle est la réponse du gouvernement ? En abordant ces questions, cet article explore le lien entre citoyenneté active et participation politique.
au cours des 25 dernières années en vue de vérifier la qualité de la participation politique de l’Afrique du Sud.
Public Participation, Electoral Dispute and Conflict Resolution Mechanisms: The Case of Moutse, South Africa, Wards 5 and 6, 2013-2016
This study examines the concept of public participation and the dispute resolution mechanisms that can be utilised to resolve electoral disputes and conflicts at the level of local government in South Africa. The study stems largely from community-based participatory action research, also referred to as café conversations. This research project was conducted in Moutse, Wards […]
When a Compratriot Becomes a Foe: Political Parties and Violent Elections in Kenya and South Africa
This paper examines the operations of political parties in Kenya and South Africa and provides an analysis of how such operations have become drivers of election violence. The paper contends that as a result of the structure of political parties and how they operate, they have contributed to the violence that has become an endemic […]
Youth, Protests and the 2014 National Elections: The Case of Zamdela, Sasolburg
There is a general perception that youth are apathetic to local politics and national elections. At the same time, young people are often at the forefront of protest. Both electoral politics and protest are forms of political participation; however, the relationship between the two is under-explored. In Zamdela, young people were politicised by two events: […]
Voters’ Roll Crises and the need for Electoral Reforms in South Africa
This paper considers the implications of the Constitutional Court ruling that declared the 2013 Tlokwe by-elections unconstitutional. This ruling was because the voters’ roll did not contain the addresses of voters as required by electoral legislation and it has cast a shadow on the credibility of elections in South Africa. The Constitutional Court gave the […]