The value of a good campaign video

On November 1st South Africans will head to the polls in what promises to be both the strangest and most important local elections of modern times. With the country only just emerging from some of the strictest coronavirus restrictions in the world, the lead-up to these elections has been unlike any other campaign period. Parties have been largely unable to carry out in-person campaign activities and have instead become reliant on broadcasting and social media to get their messages across to voters.

Even at a local level, South African politics has never looked more rotten, as state auditors found out in June when they reported several ANC-controlled municipalities for gross mismanagement and placed others under direct administration by their provincial governments. Now, with voters having been largely confined to their homes for the past few months, the role of social media in allowing South Africans to take part in democracy has never been so important. However, the major parties have taken different approaches to this vital medium, with various degrees of effectiveness.

Take the Democratic Alliance, for example, who this week spelled out their main campaign promises in a short video. The major focus of the video is corruption during the last 27 years of ANC government, highlighting that state capture has cost South Africans some R500 billion during this time. This is obviously a highly important issue to voters and the video spells out the cost of corruption to our economy in simple brass tacks. While many voters might more readily equate corruption in the ANC with the Zuma era, it is worth remembering that President Ramaphosa said in April of this year, that his whole party “could and should” have done more to prevent state capture during the previous administration. The suspension of ANC Secretary General Ace Magushuli over corruption charges in May will also likely stick in the minds of many South Africans.

The video continues to highlight the damage caused by the last quarter century of ANC rule, noting that some 44% of South Africans are now unemployed - a major reason behind the riots in Guateng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces last year. The video also explains how the ANC’s corruption has cost taxpayers directly: from the construction of President Zuma’s Nkandala Homestead using millions of rand of public money, to the 1999 arms deal with French weapons manufacturer Thales, for which the former president allegedly received generous kickbacks while the state was a left with a R36.6 billion bill. This sum, the DA points out, would have been enough to send 3.4 million children to school.

The parting message of the DA’s video is that it will be the party to “get things done” -  a strong message for any South African tired of seeing their tax money frittered away with little to show for it. The DA places a strong emphasis on economic regeneration (particularly pertinent following the pandemic) as well as restoring faith in government. While these are certainly lofty ideals to aspire to, they at least tap in to the core issues that many voters will be thinking about as they step into the polling booth.

In a similar way, the EFF’s social media campaign has also picked up on the key message of corruption under the ANC, as well as rising unemployment and the government’s broken promise to deliver free education. A video announcing the EFF’s election manifesto includes shocking footage of a 2016 protest at Wit’s university, when police opened fire with rubber bullets on students campaigning for lower tuition fees. Rather than fading away over the last five years, this issue has become even more polarising and in March of this year a student was shot and killed for protesting against the rising cost of education.

Like the DA’s video, the EFF’s clip has a strong instruction to “unite and reject the ANC agenda”. However, unlike the DA, the freedom fighters are less clear on how they will improve the lives of South Africans if they are elected into power. Where the Democratic Alliance says it will support free enterprise and invest in things like roads and public transport, the EFF is quiet on even the broader points of its policy agenda - a move that might be costly if voters are not diligent enough to wade through their manifesto.

Nevertheless, this effort is still miles ahead of the ANC, who have taken an approach to social media that more closely resembles an online lecture series than the virtual campaign of a ruling party in the pandemic era. Long, unedited, and often incongruent videos from President Ramaphosa and his colleagues clog up the timelines of potential voters, with little in the way of a convincing campaign message. In one video, the president complains of the “catch 22” of South Africans urging him to follow “due process” but also complaining when projects are not completed on time. This rage against the oldest problem in democracy is unlikely to elicit any sympathy from voters and only serves to highlight the opposition’s point that the ruling party is not only ineffective but remains dogged by accusations of corruption and fraud.

Polls this year show that support for the ANC has dipped below 50% nationally for the first time ever. Although next month’s vote is not a general election, the public is likely to look at the national picture of high unemployment, low opportunities and a shoddy response to the pandemic, and use the local polls as a way to air their grievances. The key for all parties, therefore, will be to effectively direct these grievances without being able to engage voters directly on the doorsteps. At a time when the government is seriously struggling to deliver for South Africans, the future of local and perhaps even national democracy will now be won in cyberspace.