ANC campaign draws in more veterans
• Mbete and Mlambo-Ngcuka expected to join party’s election thrust
Former National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete and former SA deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka are set to join the ANC election campaign as part of the governing party’s move to unleash a veteran bazooka on its campaign trail. ANC head of elections Mdumiseni Ntuli said that while details were still being finalised the pair were likely be deployed to the two provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal ahead of the May 29 polls.
Former National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete and former SA deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka are set to join the ANC election campaign as part of the governing party’s move to unleash a veteran bazooka on its campaign trail.
ANC head of elections Mdumiseni Ntuli said while details were still being finalised the pair were likely be deployed to the two provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal ahead of the May 29 polls.
“When the numbers increase on our side, we are also going to be sending them to Limpopo, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga,” he said.
The push by the ANC to deploy its veterans in its election campaign is part of a bid to mobilise its voter base and to inspire its supporters to cast their ballots in its favour.
It is also a push to counter the bid by former president Jacob Zuma to oust the ANC by mobilising people to vote for his party, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which shares the same name as the ANC’s disbanded liberationera military wing.
Other party veterans such as former president Thabo Mbeki, former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe and former deputy president David Mabuza have campaigned for the party over the past two weeks.
Mlambo-Ngcuka has had a career in national and international politics. Before being SA’s deputy president in 200508, she served as minister of minerals & energy from 19992005 and as deputy minister in the department of trade & industry in 1996-99. She was an MP from 1994-96 as part of SA’s first democratic government. She also served as UN under-secretary-general and executive director of UN Women from August 2013 to August 2021.
Mbete served as the ANC’s national chair for 10 years from 2007-2017 and acted as the country’s deputy president for eight months after Thabo
Mbeki’s recall.
According to various polls, the ANC is facing the threat of losing its electoral majority for the first time nationwide forcing it to enter into coalitions with other parties to remain in power. Corruption allegations, factionalism and the emergence of splinter parties such as MK, COPE and the EFF have weakened the governing party.
According to the latest survey by global market research company Ipsos, ANC support could fall to 40.2%. The MK party, founded in December 2023, could win as much as 8.4% of the votes. The poll found the ANC is struggling to impress voters and its support base is concentrated in rural areas.
Business Day understands the next and final Ipsos election survey is likely to be released this week.
Ntuli remains bullish on the ANC’s prospects in KwaZuluNatal. “It (MK) was established on the basis of the unhappiness of Jacob Zuma and because it was established based on a personal grievance, its influence over time will wane,” he said.