By Zukile Majova
It is now an open secret that the country is in election mode.
And week in week out, opposition parties and community organisations in small dorpies across the land are ganging up to remove the ANC from power.
There is also a significant increase in independent candidates participating in municipal by-elections; all reflecting a public unhappiness with candidates fielded by the ANC.
All this has spooked President Cyril Ramaphosa who called for the ANC to “get into election mode without delay”.
He told a two-day gathering of the party in Kempton Park that the national general elections in 2024 will have huge implications for the ANC.
The party won 45.59% of the national vote during the local government elections in November 2021 and its percentage declined from 62% to 57.5% in the national general elections in 2019.
Never before has the risk been higher for the ANC to lose control of the country’s economic hub, Gauteng which it won by 50.09% in 2019.
It is now stuck in a dirty fight to grab Gauteng Metropolitan councils — Joburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni — away from a DA-led coalition by any means necessary.
Last week it shocked the nation when it forced former DA mayor Dr Mpho Phalatse out of office and replaced him with Abubakar Thaphelo Amad of Al Jama-ah, a party with just three seats in the 270-seat council.
Ramaphosa said the ANC could not afford to delay preparing its structures to fight the most difficult election since 1994.
“Although no party has officially launched its election campaign, as one observes, the campaigns for 2024 elections are well underway.
“This Lekgotla must be one of the platforms we utilise to actually get our election campaign underway.”
It’s a dangerous call by the president and borders on being illegal as the laws governing the proclamation of elections allow a politically-charged period of 90 days before the elections.
The president here is putting the nation on election mode for over 12 months.
Pictured above: President Ramaphosa
Image source: @Busani_MtalanaM
