Zukile Majova
The ANC has a choice:
Stick with the thugs and go down.
Or sacrifice some thieves and survive.
To many communities, dropping the ANC was unthinkable. But this election has taught voters nationwide that there is life after the ANC.
That is the grim reality of these elections for the ruling party, which has consistently pulled the middle finger to the nation when told to fight corruption.
And if no drastic measures are taken, voters are mostly likely to punish the party even more during the 2024 provincial and national elections.
ANC KwaZulu-Natal secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli says this slippery slope could result in the party losing the province in 2024.
“The immediate implication that is of concern to us is that it creates an impression and sets the scene towards 2024 that if it doesn’t attend to many of the challenges that have been identified, we will not be able to come back as a governing party in the province of KZN.”
The ANC got 41.4% of the vote in that province.
Going into the 2016 municipal elections, an ANC that had overseen the looting of billions of rands since its 2007 Polokwane conference, ran an arrogant campaign slogan; Asinavalo (we have no fear).
This angered voters who took the message as saying the ANC bosses thought they could continue plundering without any consequences.
In that round of elections, the ANC support fell from 61.9% to 53.9%
Still no lessons were learned. The looting continued and did not stop even when Cyril Ramaphosa became president.
Under his watch, the Special Investigations Unit suspects PPE corruption reached R14.2 billion.
Like many such blatant scandals in the ANC government, there have been no successful prosecutions of those who stole money meant to fight a health pandemic that has taken almost 90,000 lives.
In these elections, with a very low turnout, ANC support fell below 50% to 46%, marking the beginning of the end for the ANC’s dominance of the South African political landscape.
A party that is used to dominating is now in a desperate struggle to negotiate vat-n-sit arrangements to govern in some of the 58 hung municipalities.
Up for grabs are major metros like eThekwini, Nelson Mandela Bay, City of Johannesburg, Tshwane Metro and Ekurhuleni Metro.
Unfortunately for the ANC, most parties are unlikely to join forces with it because their growth in these elections came from an open rejection of the ANC by the voters.
Jumping into bed with the ANC could be seen as embracing corruption and maladministration.
Ramaphosa has to break this cycle of looting, unaccountability and lack of consequence for plundering or else he will preside over a dying organisation.
