Who will govern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa's second-richest and second-most populated province, after the 2024 provincial election?
Could the ANC lose the province it fought so hard to win again after 20 years of governing the Zulu Kingdom? Could this be the province where the Multi-Party Charter (MPC), courtesy of the IFP and the DA, rules the roost?
The latest polling results have suggested it will be a cliffhanger to decide who governs KwaZulu-Natal for the next five years, in next year's provincial election.
The DA, known for having the most sophisticated polling machinery of all the country's political parties, released results on the weekend, showing the ANC stuttering on 38% support in the province. This should cause provincial party leader Siboniso Duma and his comrades sleepless nights.
Duma has not been in the news for the right reasons since he took over the ANC chairpersonship in the province in July last year.
Recently, President Cyril Ramaphosa had to intervene to stop Duma from splurging R20 million of the troubled province's budget on hosting the glitzy SA Music Awards.
Shortly after that, Duma was accused of sexism by the ANC Women's League after grabbing the Rugby World Cup, the Webb Ellis trophy, when it was supposed to be handed to Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube during the Boks' victory parade in Durban.
But Duma may have more significant troubles ahead if he bothers to take note of the DA's poll. The same poll has both the IFP and DA on 22% each of the popular support in the province. Together with ActionSA and the ACDP, the MPC is polling at 47% in the province.
The DA/IFP match-up may prove to be a game-changer in KwaZulu-Natal. The two parties have signed a pact to cooperate in the province and don't contest each other in by-elections.
The DA has announced its energetic and popular uMngeni Municipality Mayor Chris Pappas as the party's premier candidate in the province. It is not the IFP's tradition to announce premier candidates, although it may be the largest partner in the MPC in the province.
The DA's poll is echoed by the results of a similar poll by the Social Research Foundation (SRF) in KwaZulu-Natal in September. This survey estimated the ANC's support at between 37% and 41%, depending on turnout. The SRF polled the DA on about 21% and the IFP on 27%.
It looks abundantly clear now that KwaZulu-Natal, a province battered by the July 2021 riots, torrential floods, the collapse of road infrastructure and Transnet's incompetence, will be governed by a coalition government after next year's election.
This is not unknown territory for the province; IFP-ANC coalitions, in which the IFP was the largest partner and received the premiership, ruled the province after the 1994 and 1999 provincial elections.
In 2004, the ANC surpassed the IFP, scoring 47% of the provincial vote. The ANC gave the IFP three MEC positions, but the coalition fell apart when the IFP started cooperating with the DA in KwaZulu-Natal municipalities.
In the 2009 (63%), 2014 (65%) and 2019 (54%) provincial elections, the ANC managed to win outright. 2009 and 2014 were Zuma years; former president Jacob Zuma was the ANC's first Zulu-speaking leader in a democratic era and remains popular in his home province.
Zuma's ascendancy left the IFP limping with a pitiful 11% showing in 2014 (when the DA scored 13%). But Zuma's demise in the ANC and Ramaphosa's rise has chilled the ANC's support, with the party now polling around 40%, fourteen percentage points less than in 2019.
The Zuma factor is not the only one affecting KwaZulu-Natal voting patterns. The province has little to show for service delivery achievements over the past five years. When the province received R6 billion in relief funding in response to the April 2022 floods, it only spent R250 million, for which the Auditor-General scolded it.
Currently, the ANC's only path to governing KwaZulu-Natal is through a coalition with the EFF, which polls between 7% and 11%, according to the SRF and DA. Even then, the two will have to convince smaller parties to choose them over the DA/IFP option.
Both blocks – the ANC/EFF and the IFP/DA/ActionSA – are together polling just short of the magical 50% needed, meaning smaller parties like the National Freedom Party, ACDP and the FF Plus may play a significant role in determining who governs the province.
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