South African General Election Research Articles

Including the excluded : an Afrocentric reflection on violent Protests prior 2019 South African General Elections

Including the excluded : an Afrocentric reflection on violent Protests prior 2019 South African General Elections

Discursive ideologies in campaign speeches of Cyril Ramaphosa and Julius Malema in the 2019 South African presidential election

This work analyses the discursive ideologies embedded in campaign speeches of Cyril Ramaphosa of the African National Congress (ANC) and Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in the period before May 8, 2019, the South African general elections. The study is an attempt to uncover the hidden ideologies the candidates subtly employ to sway voters in their favour. The study employed Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse the campaign messages. The data for the study comprised the campaign exchanges of the two candidates retrieved from www.youtube.com. This study shows that the two presidential contenders, through their campaign speeches, employed different ideologies through which they hoped to sway the electorate in their favour. The incumbent, Cyril Ramaphosa, projects the ideology of renewal and the elements of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ in his campaign speeches. Julius Malema, on the other hand, being a young leader, sells the ideologies of economic liberation, ‘us’ versus ‘them’ and ‘young’ versus ‘old’, depicting that only the youth can lead South Africa to the promised land. The study submits that political discourse is laden with specific ideologies which are intended to convince the voters to vote for them. It is therefore important that the public be well informed so that they can rationally uncover and identify these ideologies and either accept or reject them.

Economic and Socio-political Views of Online Participants in Online Political Commentary during the 2014 South African General Elections

Economic and Socio-political Views of Online Participants in Online Political Commentary during the 2014 South African General Elections

Play as an Indicator of Public Opinion in Online Political Commentary: A Content Analysis of Online News Forums Leading Up to the 2014 South African General Elections

Play as an Indicator of Public Opinion in Online Political Commentary: A Content Analysis of Online News Forums Leading Up to the 2014 South African General Elections

The 2014 South African general elections

• Campaigning emphases. • Opposition make new inroads into ANC support base. • Social character of opposition support. • Electoral infringements. • Probably not a turning point election.

‘Ons is saam’ – Afrikaans metal and rebuilding whiteness in the Rainbow Nation

Abstract The South African general election of 1994 installed a democratic system of government in a nation that had ruptured by violent segregation since 1948. While the ‘miracle’ of the Rainbow Nation aimed for a unified state, the redistribution of power heralded by the rise of ‘new’ South Africa left much of the white Afrikaner population with a sense of loss. The task of the post-apartheid Afrikaner cultural industry is now concerned with finding a place for the Afrikaner in modern South Africa. As such, this article explores how ‘Afrikaans metal’ has been compliant in fostering a sense of community and encourages sentiments of localized belonging. The passion and dynamism of heavy metal allows for the proliferation of a metal scene explicitly concerned with the promotion of an Afrikaner identity, performing in Afrikaans and creating Afrikaans metal for South African metal fans. However, just as the Afrikaner community at large struggles to find a white identity untarnished by apartheid, Afrikaans metal fans and bands face a similarly complex mission. Afrikaans metal represents a site within which this ‘lost’ Afrikaner identity can be both reclaimed and contested, and thus renegotiates the role of Africa’s ‘white tribe’ into the twenty-first century.

The South African General Elections 2014 and the Start of Zuma’s Second Term as President

The South African General Elections 2014 and the Start of Zuma’s Second Term as President

Political radio and television advertisements in a young democracy: the 2009 South African national election campaign

It is argued that political parties in a developing democracy should contribute to sustaining democracy through their informational and motivational functions during election campaigns. Rather than debating the merit of issue messages, it is argued that cognitive and emotional campaign messages should be integrated, in order to not only attract voters' attention but also to inform the voter, to foster democratic values, to stimulate debate and to motivate voters to vote.It was found that in the 2009 South African general election, South African political parties did not effectively integrate emotional and cognitive messages, but references to democratic values were integrated with the emotional messages. Few of the parties encouraged voters to participate in the election for the sake of sustaining the democracy. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Stance and style: A corpus-driven perspective on television coverage of the 2OO9 South African general election

This exploratory study is concerned with the extent to which corpus-driven analyses of two generically very similar corpora, namely television coverage of the South African general election of 2009 by a state-owned public broadcasting channel (SABC3) and by a commercial channel (e.tv), can nevertheless reveal interesting differences between them. The focus is mostly on those differences that relate to the channels' political stances, but stylistic contrasts in the coverage are also considered, some of which prove to be of indirect political relevance. Central to the research approach here is the notion of ‘keyness’ (a statistically significant higher density of an item in one corpus when compared to another), and this study takes its cue from Rayson (2008) by using his Wmatrix corpus analysis and comparison tool to examine differences not only at word level, but also at part-of-speech and semantic domain levels.

The dilemma of ethical political communication in South African elections

In view of South Africa’s diversity, its unresolved issues of race and complex social legacy, election campaigns are highly sensitive. From a Reformed Christian perspective, a critical question is: To what extent is the political culture infused by the Biblical imperatives of brotherly love, respect and compassion? Given the growing use of adversarial political advertising the following two questions arise and are specifically addressed: • Could it realistically be expected of Christian political communicators in a secular country such as South Africa to communicate with full respect to people at all times, or should they be excused if they try to win at all costs? and • How do political theorists view the issue? In answering these questions, social responsibility and the need for social harmony as precondition for free and fair political activities, as well as a Biblical perspective on communication are addressed. In view of these theoretical points of departure the role of emotional messages is discussed and evaluated. It is argued that all advertising, but specifically political advertising in an emotionally charged atmosphere such as an election campaign, could have a direct negative impact on social harmony and is therefore Biblically unacceptable. Examples from previous South African general elections are discussed and evaluated from a Biblical viewpoint. It is argued that parties should not merely campaign with the aim of winning an election, but rather with the intention of respecting voters while campaigning. Simultaneously they could promote democracy within a fragile social context. Any victory outside of these parameters will not stand the test of a Biblical critique. However, it would seem extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prescribe in any detail which types of negative advertisements are acceptable and which are not.

Voter abstention in the South African general election of 19991

Three and a half million South Africans abstained from voting in the general elections of June 1999. Falling turnout was partly the effect of disenfranchisement, the consequence of registration exclusion, but it also reflected voluntary political disengagement. Political parties were substantially to blame for voter disaffection, for in their electioneering they neglected those groups who were most inclined to abstain. Comparative experience suggests that declining turnout in South Africa may strengthen authoritarian politics.

Second Chance for the ANC: The 1999 South African General Election

On 2 june 1999 south africans went to the polls in the country's second democratic election. At issue in the electoral debate were: the government's mixed record of achievement since the first contest in April 1994; the prospect of significant improvement in economic performance and the promised delivery of social goods to the deprived black majority; the personality and capability of Thabo Mbeki, President Mandela's chosen successor; and the impact of victory for the African National Congress (ANC) on the status and role of the parliamentary opposition in the years to come. The first part of this article, therefore, seeks to provide a commentary on events since 1994 to set the 1999 election in context.Perhaps the most encouraging feature of South Africa's political development has been the survival and consolidation of the democratic process. Critics of the Mandela era tend to take this for granted; but it is no mean achievement especially in view of the violence which disfigured both the multi-party negotiating process and the run-up to the 1994 election and the threat of more to come to destabilize a new and untried regime.

SELLING CHANGE: ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THE 1994 SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTION

WE HAVE JUST LIVED through a remarkable period during which South Africa has changed status from being the world's favourite whipping boy to becoming the West's favoured son. This transformation finds vivid expression in the business community's voter education advertisement 'You are the People', in which South Africans of varied hues, clad in ethnic chic, undertake to build a paradise on earth. Of course the imagery of this type of ad (as of its famous prototype for Coca Cola, which has all human life sipping Cokes in perfect harmony), is less about giving voice to the world's dispossessed than about global consumerism and advertising itself. This article considers the advertising strategies adopted by the major parties in the run-up to the 1994 South African general election, and poses the question: what happens to politics when it passes under the generic rules of advertising? This article does not offer a comprehensive survey of all advertisements generated during the election campaign, although the ads under discussion are a representative selection. Nor do I address to any extent the question of effectiveness: whether the ads were more or less successful in convincing undecided voters to make their mark.1 Commonsense opinion seems to be that, as in most 'Uhuru' elections, loyalties were pretty well established before the campaigns proper began. This seems to be borne out by the high correlation between the opinion polls and the final results. As early as February the Sunday Times/Markinor poll gave the ANC 64 per cent and the NP 16, while the Star/MMR gave them 62 and 19 per cent respectively. The final tally at the end of April was: ANC 62-6; NP 20 4.2 But even here inferences are bound to be unreliable. Due to a remarkable lack of transparency on the part of the IEC (Independent Electoral Commission), it is difficult to know whether the poll figures may be taken as an independent coordinate. It seems likely that poll figures were used in the mediation process around election irregularities to finalize the results. And the IEC has not to date released any further breakdown of figures on a sub-regional or polling district basis. [Q: How many IEC

White Working-class Women and the Invention of Apartheid: ‘Purified’ Afrikaner Nationalist Agitation for Legislation Against ‘Mixed’ Marriages, 1934–9

The South African white general election of 1938 was largely fought around a poster. The poster was published by the supporters of D. F. Malan's hard-line Afrikaner Nationalists, who were attempting to unseat the more pro-imperial United Party (UP) government of Hertzog and Smuts. The poster portrayed the alleged threat of ‘mixed’ marriages to Afrikaner women, and attacked the UP for failing to legislate against it. Rejecting J. M. Coetzee's contention that such racist manifestations can solely be understood in terms of the unconscious, the paper argues that shifting gender relations amongst Afrikaners were crucial to this agitation. As young Afrikaner women moved into industry on a large scale during the 1920s and 1930s, men experienced women's greater economic and social independence as a challenge to their authority. Nationalist leaders played successfully on this insecurity by appealing to men to ‘protect’ women against supposed black threats, including ‘mixed’ marriages. The particular campaign of 1938, however, backfired somewhat on the Malanites. The Hertzog and Smuts supporters were divided over the proposal for legislation. But even their liberal faction was against ‘mixed’ marriages; they simply did not see a law as the best way of preventing it. The UP responded to the Nationalist campaign by arguing that white women were being insulted by the mere suggestion that they would marry across the colour line. They used this particular strand of racism to mobilise white women and men against the Nationalists. But the whole affair ultimately smoothed the way for Malan to legislate against ‘mixed’ marriage after he came to power in 1948. The combined effects of both Nationalist and UP campaigns was to strengthen racist opinion about the issue. In order to avoid the divisions in his party on the marriage question, Hertzog handed it over to a Commission of Inquiry. The 1939 De Villiers Report recommended in favour of legislation, but was not acted on because of the break-up of the Hertzog–Smuts government. Yet this UP appointed commission was ultimately used by the Nationalist government as the basis of its own racist marriage legislation.

‘Everybody has Won, So All Must Have Prizes’: Reflections on the South African General Election

For South Africa 1994 was an Annus Mirabilis. Despite pre-election predictions of violent disruption, the country's first democratic general election took place in an atmosphere of reconciliation and hope for a future in which past injustice would be rectified and the ‘new South Africa’ welcomed back into the international community. For a brief moment — and, of course, it might not last as the inevitable constraints imposed by scarce resources, rising expectations and external pressures complicate decision making — South Africa appeared to have taken a major step towards Nelson Mandela's goal of a ‘nation united in diversity’. Certainly, one striking feature of the four-year transition was the willingness of the elites engaged in the negotiating process to accommodate each other as they sought to reach agreement on a new constitution in a spirit of ‘consensus and compromise’. And the same spirit is meant to inspire the day-to-day working of the Government of National Unity and Reconstruction (GNU) which, in effect, is a grand coalition of all the major talents.

The Soldiers' Vote and Its Effect on the Outcome of the South African General Election of 1943

(1989). The Soldiers' Vote and Its Effect on the Outcome of the South African General Election of 1943. South African Historical Journal: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 73-93.

TOWARDS RUPTURE OR STASIS? AN ANALYSIS OF THE 1981 SOUTH AFRICAN GENERAL ELECTION

Journal Article TOWARDS RUPTURE OR STASIS? AN ANALYSIS OF THE 1981 SOUTH AFRICAN GENERAL ELECTION Get access CRAIG R. CHARNEY CRAIG R. CHARNEY Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 81, Issue 325, October 1982, Pages 527–545, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a097454 Published: 01 October 1982

THE SOUTH AFRICAN GENERAL ELECTION OF 1977

WRITING SOME TWENTY YEARS AGO Robin Farquharson pointed to the deceptive air of reality which pervades the conduct (and he might have added, the study) of South African general elections.' To the myopic observor a South African election exudes some of the atmosphere and exhibits many of the institutional features of elections in the liberal democracies. But the obvious peculiarity is that some 84 per cent of the adult population, being African, Indian or Coloured, is not only prevented by law from participating in these activities, but shows remarkably little interest in the outcome.2 By contrast, white electoral interest is at times intense, stimulated no doubt by the excitement of electioneering but taking little account, it seems, of either the inevitability of the result (a massive Nationalist majority) or the accusation that they are taking part in a travesty of the democratic process. Whilst the latter dilemma is unlikely to concern the ardent Nationalist supporter, it does pose difficulties for those who believe that participation in white electoral politics may circumscribe their ability to come to some future accomodation with the more moderate of black leaders, which they believe to be the only route to peaceful change in South Africa. This does not mean that they reject outright the parliamentary approach but the more perceptive of opposition politicians recognise clearly both its limitations and its utility. Others, for disparate reasons, proclaim the futility of white political opposition.3 Nevertheless, the vast majority of white South Africans do participate in elections, the most recent of which was held in November, 1977. If the government's constitutional proposals are enacted, it seems probable that South Africa has experienced its last election under the classic Westminster parliamentary model.

Factors Underlying Change in the South African General Election of 1970

Factors Underlying Change in the South African General Election of 1970

The South African General Election of 1961

The South African General Election of 1961