The geopolitics behind the DA win in Cape Town

The DA, somewhat against expectation, won a clear majority in the recent election in the Western Cape. It is now the sole province beyond the direct control of the ANC. Why?

While the exact reasons for this win are probably complex, it may be interesting to examine a slightly different perspective. In this view we are going to try and look at why Cape Town and not Johannesburg or Durban, for example, defined the ANC’s first breakaway region. It is tempting to simply point to racial demographics as the sole reason for Cape Town’s belligerent voting pattern. I think that this would be a mistake.

As per the 2001 census, the racial demographics of the Western Cape are given as follows:

Coloured — 53.91%
White — 18.41%
Black — 26.68%
Indian — 1.00%

So that’s 81.59% of the population that could be termed previously disadvantaged and would by the racial demographic argument not have voted for a party that the ANC takes delight in promoting as a rightwing white apartheid throwback. Clearly other forces and considerations made the voters pick a dynamic white granny to head up the improvement of their lives instead of Jacob Zuma.

In the field of geopolitics, it is broadly understood that geography affects politics. No surprise there. This means that the geography of a region may have certain underlying realities associated with it which make the human population that live there make certain political choices. People adapt to survive depending on their physical environment from basic day-to-day living to the higher-level social and political interactions.

A government in Sweden, for example, that seems to be unable to provide affordable energy for heating will swiftly be replaced by one that can (in fact Russia used almost exactly this tactic in Ukraine to destabilise the government there). The cold climate is a geographical reality that manifests in political decision-making. The two are inextricably linked. Understanding of geopolitical subtleties, therefore, may be an invaluable tool for political parties seeking to define and model their electorate.

The geography of the Western Cape, like many other things about the Western Cape is quite different from the rest of the country. Cape Town is isolated from the rest of South Africa and this has important geopolitical implications.

Johannesburg, the economic engine room of both South Africa and in many ways of Africa itself, lies at the business end of a fairly desolate 1400km road through the arid Karoo from Cape Town. The mining, financial and industrial giant that is the greater Johannesburg Pretoria mega city drives the economy. The raw materials and products needed and produced are shipped in and out via deep-water ports in Durban and Richard’s Bay and flown into and out of OR Tambo International airport.

Cape Town seldom forms a vital link in this commercial chain beyond companies with niche industries located there. The economy of the Western Cape is therefore based on different things. Tourism is paramount, as is the wine industry and other fruit farming, the fashion and textile industry as well as various service industries.

The Western Cape, in addition is climatically quite different to the rest of the country. It has a Mediterranean climate with dry hot summers and cool wet winters. It is so ecologically isolated that it has evolved its own unique and prolific floral kingdom quite different from anything else in South Africa and in fact the world.

Historically this climatic difference formed a barrier and halted western expansion by Nguni tribes whose cattle could not thrive in the Cape climate. It was therefore pure geography that ensured that European settlers did not run into the Xhosa armies when they landed at the Cape in 1652. Instead they encountered a scattered Khoisan population that posed no real threat to establishing a European presence at the Cape. This breathing space essentially lessened the colonial “cost” of making Cape Town into the outpost it became.

In addition to being largely free of hostile inhabitants, the Cape also provided European settlers with a climatic replica of home. Imported Mediterranean crops flourished, the wine industries of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal were soon replicated in the Cape and European crops were soon established in the fertile valleys. The Cape was viable. It had no malaria and was on a vital shipping route. Cape Town opened its doors for business to the outside world.

Essentially, the Cape did not need the interior of South Africa to do its trade. It forged links with the world by sea and was independent of the interior in almost all respects. Even as the interior of South Africa began to develop, Cape Town kept its direct links to the rest of the world wide open. European tourists still flock to Cape Town, barely bothering to stop over in Johannesburg which they vexingly must fly through to get there in most cases. I say most cases because certain airlines even offer direct flights to Cape Town.

After the Great Trek, wars with the Xhosa, the Zulu and the Basotho, the Boer wars and all the other fighting had finally died down, South Africa as we know it was forged. The geography of the Reef and Kimberley had created a far more complex set of parameters affecting the politics of the country. The European expansion into the interior was driven initially by global power shifts and politics and finally by mineral extraction and all of the associated support industries that went with it. The geography of this mineral wealth as well as our bigger rivers defined our borders and our conflicts for the century to come. We could waffle on about race here but actually it has little to do with anything. The conflicts in South Africa had everything to do with geography and resources and who had the power to control them. It still does.

Even as part of one country, however, the Cape was still isolated and followed a different path of development to the rest of South Africa. Whether it’s wading onto the beach to save whales, protesting about the Seapoint promenade, issuing passports for Hout Bay, parading through the city at New Year with brass bands or washing penguins, Capetonians have a noticeably different outlook and culture to many of the rest of South Africa’s citizens. Its direct links to the international community and its melting pot of ethnicity have nurtured this uniqueness. Cape Town is the sum of its geography and its associated relationships.

Even when it comes to electricity and powering the Cape, for example, the standard technology does not apply. South Africa’s massive coal reserves lie neatly next door to Johannesburg and are expensive to truck all the way down to Cape Town. In addition, the distance from Witbank to Cape Town is around 1500km which presents some really big technical issues in running long transmission lines all the way there (1500km is the exact quarter wavelength of the 50Hz waveform leading to unstable standing wave conditions, if anyone was actually curious). Out of geographic necessity, Koeberg was born. Cape Town is nuclear because it is isolated from the reef and far from coal.

Now what does any of this have to do with the DA’s win in Cape Town?

Because of the Western Cape’s isolation, its greater links to the international community, its climate and its different cultural demographic, it was always going to have different requirements to the rest of the country when it came to governance. The geography of the Cape has subtly dictated its politics. From this perspective, it was, in hindsight, always going to be a province likely to vote in an opposition party more aligned with its own geopolitical needs and realities.

It’s no surprise then that it was a progressive locally-led party, more aligned with an international developed-world view that scooped the votes in the Cape. It was hidden in the geography. What is truly surprising and highly encouraging, however, is that a large proportion of previously disadvantaged voters decided to overlook Helen Zille’s colour and the ANC propaganda about the DA and voted for her anyway.

Perhaps an interesting related exercise is to try and estimate which province may be next to align itself with an opposition party better suited to its own particular geopolitical requirements? I think the two most likely candidates are the Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal (which was previously the only other province to buck ANC rule); both for completely different reasons. Although neither of these provinces represents as clear a geopolitical difference between themselves and the rest of South Africa as the Western Cape does, both have factors pointing to them being the next province to move away from ANC rule.

If the DA or Cope or perhaps in the case of KZN, the IFP, were to exploit these differences carefully, align their message to the geopolitical reality and work hard to engender themselves to the inhabitants, they may reap a province for their efforts in the next election.